ILLUSTKATKOTS 



UNIVERSAL PROGRESS; 



A SERIES OF DISCUSSIONS. 



HERBERT SPENCER, 

M 

AUTHOR OF 
"THE SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY." 



SEW ASD REVISED EDITIOS. 



^NOV 

NEW YORK: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

1, 3, and 5 BOND STEEET. 
1883. 



4? 



M 



Entebed, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1664, by 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. 

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



\TKB UBtLAtLtl 
Of COHGHESsf 

!w£s» rNGTOl J 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 



The essays contained in the present volume were 
first published in the English periodicals — chiefly the 
Quarterly Reviews. They contain ideas of perma- 
nent interest, and display an amount of thought and 
labor evidently much greater than is usually bestowed 
on review articles. They were written with a view tc 
ultimate republication in an enduring form, and were 
issued in London with several other papers, under the 
title of " Essays ; Scientific, Political, and Speculative," 
first and second series ; — the former appearing in 1857, 
and the latter in 1863. 

The interest created in Mr. Spencer's writings by 
the publication in this country of his valuable work on 
" Education," and by criticisms of his other works, has 
created a demand for these discussions which can only 
be supplied by their republication. They are now, 
however, issued in a new form, and are more suited to 
develop the author's purpose in their preparation ; for 
while each of these essays has its intrinsic and inde- 
pendent claims upon the reader's attention, they are all 



IV EDITOR S PREFACE. 

at the same time but parts of a connected and compre- 
hensive argument. Nearly all of Mr. Spencer's essays 
have relations more or less direct to the general doc- 
trine of Evolution — a doctrine which he has probably 
done more to unfold and illustrate than any other 
thinker. The papers comprised in the present volume 
are those which deal with the subject in its most ob- 
vious and prominent aspects. 

Although the argument contained in the first essay 
on " Progress ; its Law and Cause," has been published 
in an amplified form in the author's " First Principles," 
it has been thought best to prefix it to the present col- 
lection as a key to the full interpretation of the other 
essays. 

To those who read this volume its commendation 
will be superfluous ; we will only say that those who 
become interested in his course of thought will find it 
completely elaborated in his new System of Philos- 
ophy, now in course of publication. 

The remaining articles of Mr. Spencer's first and 
second series will be shortly published, in a volume en- 
titled " Essays ; Moral, Political, and ^Esthetic." 

New Yoek, March, 1864. 



In the present edition, the article on "The Nebu- 
lar Hypothesis " has been revised and extended so as 
to present the author's latest views upon that subject. 

September, 1883. 



CONTENTS, 



FAOE 

I. — Pbogbess : Its Law and Cause, ... 1 



II. — Mannebs and Fashion, 61 

III. — The Genesis of Science, 116 

IV. — The Physiology of Laughtee, . . . . 194 

V. — The Oeigin and Function of Music, . . . 210 

VI. — The Nebulae Hypothesis, . 239 

VII. — Bain on the Emotions and the "Will, . . . 304 

VIII. — Illogical Geology, 329 

IX. — The Development Hypothesis, . . . .381 

X. — The Social Oeganism, . . . . . 388 

XI. — Use and Beauty, 433 / 

XII. — The Soueoes of Aeohiteotueal Types, . . 438 

XIII. — The Use of Anthbopomoephism, .... 444 

2 



I. 

PROGRESS : ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 



^~^HE current conception of Progress is somewhat shift* 
_ ing and indefinite. Sometimes it comprehends little 
more than simple growth — as of a nation in the number of 
its members and the extent of territory over which it has 
spread. Sometimes it has reference to quantity of material 
products — as when the advance of agriculture and manu- 
factures is the topic. Sometimes the superior quality of 
these products is contemplated : and sometimes the new or 
improved appliances by which they are produced. When, 
again, we speak of moral or intellectual progress, we refer 
to the state of the individual or people exhibiting it ; while, 
when the progress of Knowledge, of Science, of Art, ii 
commented upon, we have in view certain abstract results 
of human thought and action. Not only, however, is the 
current conception of Progress more or less vague, but it 
is in great measure erroneous. It takes in not so much the 
reality of Progress as its accompaniments — not so much 
the substance as the shadow. That progress in intelligence 
Been during the growth of the child into the man, or the 
uavage into the philosopher, is commonly regarded as con- 
sisting in the greater number of facts known and laws 



2 PEOGEESS : ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

understood : whereas the actual progress consists in those 
internal modifications of which this increased knowledge 
is the expression. Social progress is supposed to consist in 
the produce of a greater quantity and variety of the arti- 
cles required for satisfying men's wants ; in the increasing 
security of person and property ; in widening freedom of 
action : whereas, rightly understood, social progress con- 
tests in those changes of structure in the social organism 
which have entailed these consequences. The current con- 
ception is a teleological one. The phenomena are contem- 
plated solely as bearing on human happiness. Only those 
changes are held to constitute progress which directly or 
indirectly tend to heighten human happiness. And they 
are thought to constitute progress simply because they tend 
to heighten human happiness. But rightly to understand 
progress, we must inquire what is the nature of these 
changes, considered apart from our interests. Ceasing, for 
example, to regard the successive geological modifications 
that have taken place in the Earth, as modifications that 
have gradually fitted it for the habitation of Man, and as 
therefore a geological progress, we must seek to determine 
the character common to these modifications — the law to 
which they all conform. And similarly in every other case. 
Leaving out of sight concomitants and beneficial conse- 
quences, let us ask what Progress is in itself. 

In respect to that progress which individual organisms 
display in the course of their evolution, this question has 
been answered by the Germans. The investigations of 
Wolff, Goethe, and Yon Baer, have established the truth 
that the series of changes gone through during the devel- 
opment of a seed into a tree, or an ovum into an animai, 
constitute an advance from homogeneity of structure to 
heterogeneity of structure. In its primary stage, every 
germ consists of a substance that is uniform throughout, 
both in texture and chemical composition. The first step 



IN WHAT PEOGEESS CONSISTS. 6 

is the appearance of a difference between two parts of this 
substance ; or, as the phenomenon is called in physiological 
language, a differentiation. Each of these differentiated 
divisions presently begins itself to exhibit some contrast of 
parts ; and by and by these secondary differentiations be- 
come as definite as the original one. This process is con- 
tinuously repeated — is simultaneously going on in all parts 
of the growing embryo ; and by endless such differentia- 
tions there is finally produced that complex combination of 
tissues and organs constituting the adult animal or plant. 
This is the history of all organisms whatever. It is settled 
beyond dispute that organic progress consists in a change 
from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. 

Now, we propose in the first place to show, that this 
law of organic progress is the law of all progress. Whether 
it be in the development of the Eai'th, in the development 
of Life upon its surface, in the development of Society, of 
Government, of Manufactures, of Commerce, of Language, 
Literature, Science, Art, this same evolution of the simple 
into the complex, through successive differentiations, holds 
throughout. From the earliest traceable cosmical changes 
down to the latest results of civilization, we shall find that 
the transformation of the homogeneous into the heteroge- 
neous, is that in which Progress essentially consists. 

With the view of showing that if the Nebular Hypoth- 
esis be true, the genesis of the solar system supplies one 
illustration of this law, let us assume that the matter of 
which the sun and planets consist was once in a diffused 
form ; and that from the gravitation of its atoms there 
resulted a gradual concentration. By the hypothesis, the 
solar system in its nascent state existed as an indefinitely 
extended and nearly homogeneous medium — a medium 
almost homogeneous in density, in temperature, and in 
other physical attributes. The first advance towards con- 
solidation resulted in a differentiation between the occupied 



i PROGRESS : ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

space which the nebulous mass still filled, and the unoccu- 
pied space which it previously filled. There simultaneously 
resulted a contrast in density and a contrast in tempera- 
ture, between the interior and the exterior of this mass. 
And at the same time there arose throughout it rotatory 
movements, whose velocities varied according to their dis- 
tances from its centre. These differentiations increased in 
number and degree until there was evolved the organized 
group of sun, planets, and satellites, which we now know — 
a group which presents numerous contrasts of structure 
and action among its members. There are the immense 
contrasts between the sun and planets, in bulk and in 
weight ; as well as the subordinate contrasts between one 
planet and another, and between the planets and their sat- 
ellites. There is the similarly marked contrast between 
the sun as almost stationary, and the planets as moving 
round him with great velocity ; while there are the sec- 
ondary contrasts between the velocities and periods of the 
several planets, and between their simple revolutions and 
the double ones of their satellites, which have to move 
round their primaries while moving round the sun. There 
is the yet further strong contrast between the sun and the 
planets in respect of temperature ; and there is reason to 
suppose that the planets and satellites differ from each 
other in their proper heat, as well as in the heat they re- 
ceive from the sun. 

When we bear in mind that, in addition to these various 
contrasts, the planets and satellites also differ in respect to 
their distances from each other and their primary ; in respect 
to the inclinations of their orbits, the inclinations of their 
axes, their times of rotation on their axes, their specific grav- 
ities, and their physical constitutions ; we see what a high 
degree of heterogeneity the solar system exhibits, when 
compared with the almost complete homogeneity of the 
nebulous mass out of which it is supposed to have originated 



GEOLOGICAL PROGRESS OF THE EARTH. 

Passing from this hypothetical illustration, which must 
be taken for what it is worth, without prejudice to the 
general argument, let us descend to a more certain order 
of evidence. It is now generally agreed among geologists 
that the Earth was at first a mass of molten matter ; and 
that it is still fluid and incandescent at the distance of a few 
miles beneath its surface. Originally, then, it was homo- 
geneous in consistence, and, in virtue of the circulation 
that takes place in heated fluids, must have been compara- 
tively homogeneous in temperature ; and it must have been 
surrounded by an atmosphere consisting partly of the ele- 
ments of air and water, and partly of those various other 
elements which assume a gaseous form at high tempera- 
tures. That slow cooling by radiation which is still going 
on at an inappreciable rate, and which, though originally 
far more rapid than now, necessarily required an immense 
time to produce any decided change, must ultimately have 
resulted in the solidification of the portion most able to 
part with its heat — namely, the surface. In the thin crust 
thus formed we have the first marked differentiation. A still 
further cooling, a consequent thickening of this crust, and an 
accompanying deposition of all solidifiable elements con 
tained in the atmosphere, must finally have been followed 
by the condensation of the water previously existing as 
vapour. A second marked differentiation must thus have 
ai-isen : and as the condensation must have taken place on 
the coolest parts of the surface — namely, about the poles — 
there must thus have resulted the first geographical dis- 
tinction of parts. To these illustrations of growing hete- 
rogeneity, which, though deduced from the known laws of 
matter, may be regarded as more or less hypothetical, 
Geology adds an extensive series that have been inductively 
established. Its investigations show that the Earth has 
been continually becoming more heterogeneous in virtue 
of the multiplication of the strata which form its crust ; 



l'KOGRESS I ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

further, that it has been becoming more heterogeneous in 
respect of the composition of these strata, the latter of 
which, being made from the detritus of the older ones, are 
many of them rendered highly complex by the mixture of 
materials they contain ; and that this heterogeneity has 
been vastly increased by the action of the Earth's still 
molten nucleus upon its envelope, whence have resulted 
not only a great variety of igneous rocks, but the tilting 
up of sedimentary strata at all angles, the formation of 
faults and metallic veins, the production of endless disloca- 
tions and irregularities. Yet again, geologists teach us 
that the Earth's surface has been growing more varied in 
elevation — that the most ancient mountain systems are the 
smallest, and the Andes and Himalayas the most modern ; 
while in all probability there have been corresponding 
changes in the bed of the ocean. As a consequence of 
these ceaseless diiferentiations, we now find that no consid- 
erable portion of the Earth's exposed surface is like any 
other portion, either in contour, in geologic structure, or 
in chemical composition ; and that in most parts it changes 
from mile to mile in all these characteristics. 

Moreover, it must not be forgotten that there has been 
simultaneously going on a gradual differentiation of climates. 
As fast as the Earth cooled and its crust solidified, there arose 
appreciable differences in temperature between those parts 
of its surface most exposed to the sun and those less exposed. 
Gradually, as the cooling progressed, these differences be- 
came more pronounced ; until there finally resulted those 
marked contrasts between regions of perpetual ice and 
snow, regions where winter and summer alternately reign 
tor periods varying according to the latitude, and regions 
where summer follows summer with scarcely an appreciable 
variation. At the same time the successive elevations and 
subsidences of different portions of the Earth's crust, tend- 
ing as they have done to the present irregular distribution 



PROGRESS OF TERRESTRIAL LIFE 7 

of laud and sea, have entailed various modifications of cli- 
mate beyond those dependent on latitude ; while a yet fur- 
ther series of such modifications have been produced by 
increasing differences of elevation in the land, which have 
in sundry places brought arctic, temperate, and tropical 
climates to within a few miles of each other. And the 
general result of these changes is, that not only has every 
extensive region its own meteorologic conditions, but that 
every locality in each region differs more or less from oth- 
ers in those conditions, as in its structure, its contour, its 
soil. Thus, between our existing Earth, the phenomena of 
whose varied crust neither geographers, geologists, miner- 
alogists, nor meteorologists have yet enumerated, and the 
molten globe out of which it was evolved, the contrast in 
heterogeneity is sufficiently striking. 

When from the Earth itself we tarn to the plants and 
animals that have lived, or still live, upon its surface, we 
find ourselves in some difficulty from lack of facts. That 
every existing organism has been developed out of the 
simple into the complex, is indeed the first established 
truth of all ; and that every organism that has existed was 
similarly developed, is an inference which no physiologist 
will hesitate to draw. But when we pass from individual 
forms of life to Life in general, and inquire whether the 
same law is seen in the ensemble of its manifestations, — 
wnether modern plants and animals are of more hetero- 
geneous structure than ancient ones, and whether the 
Earth's present Flora and Fauna are more heterogeneous 
than the Flora and Fauna of the past, — we find the evi- 
dence so fragmentary, that every conclusion is open to 
dispute. Two-thirds of the Earth's surface being covered 
by water ; a great part of the exposed land being inaccess- 
ible to, or untravelled by, the geologist ; the greater part 
of the remainder having been scarcely more than glanced 
at ; and even the most familiar portions, as England, hav- 



8 PK0GKES8 I ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

mg been so imperfectly explored that a new series of strata 
has been added within these four years, — it is manifestly 
impossible for us to say with any certainty what creatures 
have, and what have not, existed at any particular period. 
Considering the perishable nature of many of the lower 
organic forms, the metamorphosis of many sedimentary 
strata, and the gaps that occur among the rest, we shall 
see further reason for distrusting our deductions. On the 
one hand, the repeated discovery of vertebrate remains in 
strata previously supposed to contain none, — of reptiles 
where only fish were thought to exist, — of mammals where 
it was believed there were no creatures higher than rep- 
tiles, — renders it daily more manifest how small is the 
value of negative evidence. 

On the other hand, the worthlessness of the assumption 
that we have discovered the earliest, or anything like the 
earliest, organic remains, is becoming equally clear. That 
the oldest known sedimentary rocks have been greatly 
changed by igneous action, and that still older ones have 
been totally transformed by it, is becoming undeniable. 
And the fact that sedimentary strata earlier than any we 
know, have been melted up, being admitted, it must also 
be admitted that we cannot say how far back in time this 
destruction of sedimentary strata has been going on. Thus 
it is manifest that the title, JPalceozoic, as applied to the 
earliest known fossiliferous strata, involves a petitio princi- 
pii ; and that, for aught we know to the contrary, only the 
last few chapters of the Earth's biological history may have 
come down to us. On neither side, therefore, is the evi- 
dence conclusive. Nevertheless we cannot but think that, 
scanty as they are, the facts, taken altogether, tend to show 
both that the more heterogeneous organisms have been 
evolved in the later geologic periods, and that Life in 
general has been more heterogeneously manifested as time 
has advanced. Let us cite, in illustration, the one case of 



ADVANCE OF THE ANIMAL RACES. 9 

the vertebrata. The earliest known vertebrate remains, are 
those of Fishes ; and Fishes are the most homogeneous of 
the vertebrata. Later and more heterogeneous are Rep- 
tiles. Later still, and more heterogeneous still, are Mam- 
mals and Birds. If it be said, as it may fairly be said, that 
the Palaeozoic deposits, not being estuary deposits, are not 
likely to contain the remains of terrestrial vertebrata, which 
may nevertheless have existed at that era, we reply that we 
are merely pointing to the leading facts, such as they are. 
But to avoid any such criticism, let us take the mam- 
malian subdivision only. The earliest known remains of 
mammals are those of small marsupials, which are the low- 
est of the mammalian type ; while, conversely, the highest 
of the mammalian type — Man — is the most recent. The 
evidence that the vertebrate fauna, as a whole, has become 
more heterogeneous, is considerably stronger. To the 
argument that the vertebrate fauna of the Palaeozoic period, 
consisting, so far as we know, entirely of Fishes, was less 
heterogeneous than the modern vertebrate fauna, which 
includes Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals, of multitudinous 
genera, it may be replied, as before, that estuary deposits 
of the Palaeozoic period, could we find them, might contain 
other orders of vertebrata. But no such reply can be made 
to the argument that whereas the marine vertebrata of the 
Palaeozoic period consisted entirely of cartilaginous fishes, 
the marine vertebrata of later periods include numerous 
genera of osseous fishes ; and that, therefore, the later 
marine vertebrate faunas are more heterogeneous than the 
oldest known one. Nor, again, can any such reply be made 
to the fact that there are far more numerous orders and 
genera of mammalian remains in the tertiary formations than 
in the secondary formations. Did we wisL merely to make 
out the best case, we might dwell upon the opinion of Dr. 
Carpenter, who says that " the general facts of Palaeontol- 
ogy appear to sanction the belief, that the same plan may 



LO PROGRESS : ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

be traced out in what may be called the general life of the 
globe, as in the individual life of every one of the forms of 
organized being which now people it." Or we might quote, 
as decisive, the judgment of Professor Owen, who holds 
that the earlier examples of each group of creatures sever- 
ally departed less widely from archetypal generality than 
the later ones — were severally less unlike the fundamental 
form common to the group as a whole ; that is to say — 
constituted a less heterogeneous group of creatures ; and 
who further upholds the doctrine of a biological progres- 
sion. But in deference to an authority for whom we have 
the highest respect, who considers that the evidence at 
present obtained does not justify a verdict either way, we 
are content to leave the question open. 

"Whether an advance from the homogeneous to the 
heterogeneous is or is not displayed in the biological his- 
tory of the globe, it is clearly enough displayed in the 
progress of the latest and most heterogeneous creature — 
Man. It is alike true that, during the period in which the 
Earth has been peopled, the human organism has grown 
more heterogeneous among the civilized divisions of the 
species ; and that the species, as a whole, has been grow- 
ing more heterogeneous in virtue of the multiplication of 
races and the differentiation of these races from each 
other. 

In proof of the first of these positions, we may cite 
the fact that, in the relative development of the limbs, the 
civilized man departs more widely from the general type 
of the placental mammalia than do the lower human races. 
While often possessing well-developed body and arms, the 
Papuan has extremely small legs : thus reminding us of 
the quadrumana, in which there is no great contrast in 
size between the hind and fore limbs. But in the Eu- 
ropean, the greater length and massiveness of the legs has 
become very marked—the fore and hind limbs are rela- 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE CIVILIZED EACES. 1.1 

lively more heterogeneous. Again, the greater ratio 
which the cranial bones bear to the facial bones illustrates 
the same truth. Among the vertebrata in general, pro- 
gress is marked by an increasing heterogeneity in the verte- 
bral column, and more especially in the vertebras constitut- 
ing the skull : the higher forms being distinguished by the 
relatively larger size of the bones which cover the brain, 
and the relatively smaller size of those which form the 
jaw, &c. Now, this characteristic, which is stronger in 
Man than in any other creature, is stronger in the European 
than in the savage. Moreover, judging from the greater 
extent and variety of faculty he exhibits, we may infer that 
the civilized man has also a more complex or hetero- 
geneous nervous system than the uncivilized man : and 
indeed the fact is in part visible in the increased ratio 
which his cerebrum bears to the subjacent ganglia. 

If further elucidation be needed, we may find it in every 
nursery. The infant European has sundry marked points 
of resemblance to the lower human races ; as in the flat- 
ness of the aire of the nose, the depression of its bridge, 
the divergence and forward opening of the nostrils, the 
form of the lips, the absence of a frontal sinus, the width 
between the eyes, the smallness of the legs. Now, as the 
developmental process by which these traits are turned into 
those of the adult European, is a continuation of that 
change from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous dis- 
played during the previous evolution of the embryo, which 
every physiologist will admit ; it follows that the parallel 
developmental process by which the like traits of the bar- 
barous races have been turned into those of the civilized 
races, has also been a continuation of the change from 
the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. The truth of the 
second position — that Mankind, as a whole, have become 
more heterogeneous — is so obvious as scarcely to need 
illustration. Every work on Ethnology, by its divisions 



12 PROGRESS : ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

and subdivisions of races, bears testimony to it. Even 
were we to admit the hypothesis that Mankind originated 
from several separate stocks, it would still remain true, 
that as, from each of these stocks, there have sprung many 
now widely different tribes, which are proved by philologi- 
cal evidence to have had a common origin, the race as a 
whole is far less homogeneous than it once was. Add to 
which, that we have, in the Anglo-Americans, an example 
of a new variety arising within these few generations ; 
and that, if we may trust to the description of observers, 
we are likely soon to have another such example in Aus- 
tralia. 

On passing from Humanity under its individual form, to 
Humanity as socially embodied, we find the general law still 
more variously exemplified. The change from the homo- 
geneous to the heterogeneous is displayed equally in the 
progress of civilization as a whole, and in the progress of 
every tribe or nation ; and is still going on with increasing 
rapidity. As we see in existing barbarous tribes, society 
in its first and lowest form is a homogeneous aggregation 
of individuals having like powers and like functions: the 
only marked difference of function being that which accom- 
panies difference of sex. Every man is warrior, hunter, 
fisherman, tool-maker, builder ; every woman performs 
the same drudgeries ; every family is self-sufficing, and save 
for purposes of aggression and defence, might as well live 
apart from the rest. Very early, however, in the process 
of social evolution, we find an incipient differentiation be- 
tween the governing and the governed. Some kind of 
chieftainship seems coeval with the first advance from the 
state of separate wandering families to that of a nomadic 
tribe. The authority of the strongest makes itself felt 
among a body of savages as in a herd of animals, or a 
posse of schoolboys. At first, however, it is indefinite, un- 
certain ; is shared by others of scarcely inferior power ; 



EAJRLY EVOLUTION OF GOVERNMENTS. 13 

and is unaccompanied by any difference in occupation or 
Btyle of living : the first ruler kills his own game, makes 
his own weapons, builds his own hut, and economically con- 
sidered, does not differ from others of his tribe. Gradual- 
ly, as the tribe progresses, the contrast between the gov- 
erning and the governed grows more decided. Supreme 
power becomes hereditary in one family ; the head of that 
family, ceasing to provide for his own wants, is served by 
others ; and he begins to assume the sole office of ruling. 

At the same time there has been arising a co-ordinate 
species of government — that of Religion. As all ancient re- 
cords and traditions prove, the earliest rulers are regarded as 
divine personages. The maxims and commands they uttered 
during their lives are held sacred after their deaths, and are 
enforced by their divinely-descended successors ; who in 
their turns are promoted to the pantheon of the race, there 
to be worshipped and propitiated along with their prede- 
cessors : the most ancient of whom is the supreme god, and 
the rest subordinate gods. For a long time these connate 
forms of government — civil and religious — continue closely 
associated. For many generations the king continues to 
be the chief priest, and the priesthood to be members of 
the royal race. For many ages religious law continues to 
contain more or less of civil regulation, and civil law to 
possess more or less of religious sanction ; and even among 
the most advanced nations these two controlling agencies 
are by no means completely differentiated from each other. 

Having a common root with these, and gradually diverg- 
ingfromthem, we find yet another controlling agency— that of 
Manners or ceremonial usages. All titles of honour are 
originally the names of the god-king ; afterwards of God 
and the king ; still later of persons of high rank ; and fin- 
ally come, some of them, to be used between man and man. 
All forms of complimentary address were at first the ex- 
pressions of submission from prisoners to their conqueror, 



14 PROGRESS I ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

or from subjects to their ruler, either human or divine — 
expressions that were afterwards used to proj>itiate subor- 
dinate authorities, and slowly descended into ordinary inter- 
course. All modes of salutation were once obeisances made 
before the monarch and used in worship of him after his 
death. Presently others of the god-descended race were sim- 
ilarly saluted ; and by degrees some of the salutations have 
become the due of all.* Thus, no sooner does the originally 
homogeneous social mass differentiate into the governed and 
the governing parts, than this last exhibits an incipient dif- 
ferentiation into religious and secular — Church and State ; 
while at the same time there begins to be differentiated 
from both, that less definite species of government which 
rules our daily intercourse — a species of government which, 
as we may see in heralds' colleges, in books of the peerage, 
in masters of ceremonies, is not without a certain embodi- 
ment of its own. Each of these is itself subject to succes- 
sive differentiations. In the course of ages, there arises, as 
among ourselves, a highly complex political organization of 
monarch, ministers, lords and commons, with their subor- 
dinate administrative departments, courts of justice, reve- 
nue offices, &c, supplemented in the provinces by munici- 
pal governments, county governments, parish or union gov- 
ernments — all of them more or less elaborated. By its side 
there grows up a highly complex religious organization, 
with its various grades of officials, from archbishops down 
to sextons, its colleges, convocations, ecclesiastical courts, 
&c. ; to all which must be added the ever multiplying inde- 
pendent sects, each with its general and local authorities. 
And at the same time there is developed a highly complex 
aggregation of customs, manners, and temporary fashions, 
enforced by society at large, and serving to control those 

* For detailed proof of these assertions see essay on Manners ana 
Fashion. 



INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 15 

minor transactions between man and man which are not reg- 
ulated by civil and religious law. Moreover it is to be ob- 
served that this ever increasing heterogeneity in the gov- 
ernmental appliances of each nation, has been accompanied 
by an increasing heterogeneity in the governmental appli- 
ances of different nations ; all of which are more or lesa 
unlike in their political systems and legislation, in their 
creeds and religious institutions, in their customs and cere- 
monial usages. 

Simultaneously there has been going on a second dif- 
ferentiation of a more familiar kind ; that, namely, by 
which the mass of the community has been segregated into 
distinct classes and orders of workers. While the govern- 
ing part has undergone the complex development above 
detailed, the governed part has undergone an equally com- 
plex development, which has resulted in that minute divis- 
ion of labour characterizing advanced nations. It is need- 
less to trace out this progress from its first stages, up 
through the caste divisions of the East and the incorporat- 
ed guilds of Europe, to the elaborate producing and dis- 
tributing organization existing among ourselves. Political 
economists have long since described the evolution which, 
beginning with a tribe whose members severally perform 
the same actions each for himself, ends with a civilized com- 
munity whose members severally perform different actions 
for each other ; and they have further pointed out the 
changes through which the solitary producer of any one 
commodity is transformed into a combination of producers 
who, united under a master, take separate parts in the man- 
ufacture of such commodity. But there are yet other and 
higher phases of this advance from the homogeneous to the 
heterogeneous in the industrial organization of society. 

Long after considerable progress has been made in the di- 
vision of labour among different classes of workers, there 
is still little or no division of labour among the widely sep- 



16 PEOGEESS: ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

arated parts of the community ; the nation continues com- 
paratively homogeneous in the respect that in each district 
the same occupations are pursued. But when roads and 
other means of transit become numerous and good, the dif- 
ferent districts begin to assume different functions, and to 
become mutually dependent. The calico manufacture lo- 
cates itself in this county, the woollen-cloth manufacture in 
that ; silks are produced here, lace there ; stockings in one 
place, shoes in another ; pottery, hardware, cutlery, come 
to have their special towns ; and ultimately every locality 
becomes more or less distinguished from the rest by the 
leading occupation carried on in it. Nay, more, this sub- 
division of functions shows itself not only among the differ- 
ent parts of the same nation, but among different nations. 
That exchange of commodities which free-trade promises 
so greatly to increase, will ultimately have the effect of 
specializing, in a greater or less degree, the industry of 
each people. So that beginning with a barbarous tribe, 
almost if not quite homogeneous in the functions of its 
members, the progress has been, and still is, towards an 
economic aggregation of the whole human race ; growing 
ever more heterogeneous in respect of the separate func- 
tions assumed by separate nations, the separate functions 
assumed by the local sections of each nation, the separate- 
functions assumed by the many kinds of makers and traders 
in each town, and the separate functions assumed by the 
workers united in producing each commodity. 

Not only is the law thus clearly exemplified in the evo 
lution of the social organism, but it is exemplified with equal 
clearness in the evolution of all products of human thought 
and action, whether concrete or abstract, real or ideal. Let 
us take Language as our first illustration. 

The lowest form of language is the exclamation, by 
which an entire idea is vaguely conveyed through a single 
sound ; as among the lower animals. That human language 



DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE. 17 

ever consisted solely of exclamations, and so was strictly ho- 
mogeneous in respect of its parts of speech, we have no evi- 
dence. But that language can be traced down to a form 
in which nouns and verbs are its only elements, is an estab- 
lished fact. In the gradual multiplication of parts of speech 
out of these primary ones — in the differentiation of verbs 
into active and passive, of nouns into abstract and concrete 
—in the rise of distinctions of mood, tense, person, of num- 
ber and case — in the formation of auxiliary verbs, of adjec- 
tives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, articles — in the di- 
vergence of those orders, genera, species, and varieties of 
parts of speech by which civilized races express minute 
modifications of meaning — we see a change from the homo- 
geneous to the heterogeneous. And it may be remarked, 
in passing, that it is more especially in virtue of having 
carried this subdivision of function to a greater extent and 
completeness, that the English language is superior to all 
others. 

Another aspect under which we may trace the devel- 
opment of language is the differentiation of words of 
allied meanings. Philology early disclosed the truth that 
in all languages words may be grouped into families having 
a common ancestry. An aboriginal name applied indiscrim- 
inately to each of an extensive and ill-defined class of things 
or actions, presently undergoes modifications by which the 
chief divisions of the class are expressed. These several 
names springing from the primitive root, themselves become 
the parents of other names still further modified. And by 
the aid of those systematic modes which presently arise, 
of making derivations and forming compound terms ex- 
pressing still smaller distinctions, there is finally developed 
a tribe of words so heterogeneous in sound and meaning, 
that to the uninitiated it seems incredible that they should 
have had a common origin. Meanwhile from other roota 
there are being evolved other such tribes, until there r*»- 



18 PROGRESS I ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

suits a language of some sixty thousand 01 more unlike 
words, signifying as many unlike objects, qualities, acts. 

Yet another way in which language in general advances 
from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, is in the mul 
tiplication of languages. Whether as Max Muller and Bun- 
sen think, all languages have grown from one stock, or 
whether, as some philologists say, they have grown from 
two or more stocks, it is clear that since large families of 
languages, as the Indo-European, are of one parentage, 
they have become distinct through a process of continuous 
divergence. The same diffusion over the Earth's surface 
Avhich has led to the differentiation of the race, has simulta- 
neously led to a differentiation of their speech : a truth 
which we see further illustrated in each nation by the pecu- 
liarities of dialect found in several districts. Thus the pro- 
gress of Language conforms to the general law, alike in th<3 
evolution of languages, in the evolution of families of words, 
and in the evolution of parts of speech. 

On passing from spoken to written language, we come 
upon several classes of facts, all having similar implications. 
Written language is connate with Painting and Sculpture ; 
and at first all three are appendages of Architecture, and 
have a direct connection with the primary form of all Gov- 
ernment — the theocratic. Merely noting by the way the 
fact that sundry wild races, as for example the Australians 
and the tribes of South Africa, are given to depicting per- 
sonages and events upon the walls of caves, which are prob- 
ably regarded as sacred places, let us pass to the case of 
the Egyptians. Among them, as also among the Assyrians, 
we find mural paintings used to decorate the temple of the 
god and the palace of the king (which were, indeed, origi- 
nally identical) ; and as such they were governmental appli- 
ances in the same sense that state-pageants and religious 
feasts were. Further, they were governmental appliances 
in virtue of representing the worship of the god, the tri 



PICTORIAL GERMS OF LANGUAGE. 19 

umphs of the god-king, the submission of his subjects, and 
the punishment of the rebellious. And yet again they were 
governmental, as being the products of an art reverenced 
by the people as a sacred mystery. From the habitual use 
of this pictorial representation there naturally grew up the 
but slightly-modified practice of picture-writing — a practice 
which was found still extant among the Mexicans at the time 
they were discovered. By abbreviations analogous to those 
still going on in our own written and spoken language, the 
most familiar of these pictured figures were successively sim- 
plified ; and ultimately there grew up a system of symbols, 
most of which had but a distant resemblance to the things 
for which they stood. The inference that the hieroglyphics 
of the Egyptians were thus produced, is confirmed by the 
fact that the picture-writing of the Mexicans was found to 
have given birth to a like family of ideographic forms ; and 
among them, as among the Egyptians, these had been par- 
tially differentiated into the kuriological or imitative, and 
the tropical or symbolic : which were, however, used to- 
gether in the same record. In Egypt, written language 
underwent a further differentiation : whence resulted the 
hieratic and the epistolo graphic or enchorial : both of which 
are derived from the original hieroglyphic. At the same 
time we find that for the expression of proper names which 
could not be otherwise conveyed, phonetic symbols were 
employed ; and though it is alleged that the Egyptians 
never actually achieved complete alphabetic writing, yet it 
can scarcely be doubted that these phonetic symbols occa- 
sionally used in aid of their ideographic ones, were the 
germs out of which alphabetic writing grew. Once having 
become separate from hieroglyphics, alphabetic writing it- 
self underwent numerous differentiations — multiplied alpha- 
bets were produced ; between most of which, however, mere 
or less connection can still be traced. And m each civil- 
ized nation there has now grown up, for the representation 



20 PROGRESS : ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

of one set of sounds, several sets of written signs used for 
distinct purposes. Finally, through a yet more important 
differentiation came printing ; which, uniform in kind as it 
was at first, has since become multiform. 

While written language was passing through its earlier 
stages of development, the mural decoration which formed 
its root was being differentiated into Painting and Sculps 
ture. The gods, kings, men, and animals represented, were 
originally marked by indented outlines and coloured. In 
most cases these outlines were of such depth, and the ob- 
ject they circumscribed so far rounded and marked out in 
its leading parts, as to form a species of work intermediate 
between intaglio and bas-relief. In other cases we see an 
advance upon this : the raised spaces between the figures 
being chiselled off, and the figures themselves appropriately 
tinted, a painted bas-relief was produced. The restored 
Assyrian architecture at Sydenham exhibits this style of 
art carried to greater perfection — the persons and things 
represented, though still barbarously coloured, are carved 
out with more truth and in greater detail : and in the 
winged lions and bulls used for the angles of gateways, we 
may see a considerable advance towards a completely 
sculptured figure ; which, nevertheless, is still coloured, 
and still forms part of the building. But while in Assyria 
the production of a statue proper seems to have been lit- 
tle, if at all, attempted, we may trace in Egyptian art the 
gradual separation of the sculptured figure from the wall. 
A walk through the collection in the British Museum will 
clearly show this ; while it will at the same time afford an 
opportunity of observing the evident traces which the inde- 
pendent statues bear of their derivation from bas-relief: 
seeing that nearly all of them not only display that union 
of the limbs with the body which is the characteristic of 
bas-relief, but have the back of the statue united from 
head to foot with a block which stands in place of the 



OEIGIN OF CHRISTIAN ART. 21 

original wall. Greece repeated the leading stages of this 
progress. As in Egypt and Assyria, these twin arts were 
at first united with each other and with their parent, Archi- 
tecture, and were the aids of Religion and Government. 
On the friezes of Greek temples, we see coloured bas-reliefs 
representing sacrifices, battles, processions, games — all in 
some sort religious. On the pediments we see painted 
sculptures more or less united with the tympanum, and 
having for subjects the triumphs of gods or heroes. Even 
when we come to statues that are definitely separated from 
the buildings to which they pertain, we still find them 
coloured ; and only in the later periods of Greek civiliza- 
tion does the differentiation of sculpture from painting 
appear to have become complete. 

In Christian art we may clearly trace a parallel re-gene- 
sis. All early paintings and sculptures throughout Europe 
were religious in subject — represented Christs, crucifixions, 
virgins, holy families, apostles, saints. They formed inte- 
gral parts of church architecture, and were among the 
means of exciting worship ; as in Roman Catholic countries 
they still are. Moreover, the early sculptures of Christ on 
the cross, of virgins, of saints, were coloured : and it needs 
but to call to mind the painted madonnas and crucifixes 
still abundant in continental churches and highways, to 
perceive the significant fact that painting and sculpture 
continue in closest connection with each other where they 
continue in closest connection with their parent. Even 
when Christian sculpture was pretty clearly differentiated 
from painting, it was still religious and governmental in its 
subjects — was used for tombs in churches and statues of 
kings : while, at the same time, painting, where not purely 
ecclesiastical, was applied to the decoration of palaces, and 
besides representing royal personages, was almost wholly 
devoted to sacred legends. Only in quite recent times 
have painting and sculpture become entirely secular arts. 



22 PEOGEESS I ITS LAI AND CAUSE. 

Only within these few centuries has painting been divided 
into historical, landscape, marine, architectural, genre, ani- 
mal, still-life, &c, and sculpture grown heterogeneouj in 
respect of the variety of real and ideal subjects with which 
it occupies itself. 

Strange as it seems then, we find it no less true, that 
all forms of written language, of painting, and of sculp- 
ture, have a common root in the politico-religious decora- 
tions of ancient temples and palaces. Little resemblance 
as they now have, the bust that stands on the console, the 
landscape that hangs against the wall, and the copy of the 
Times lying upon the table, are remotely akin ; not only 
in nature, but by extraction. The brazen face of the 
knocker which the postman has just lifted, is related not 
only to the woodcuts of the Illustrated London News 
which he is delivering, but to the characters of the billet- 
doux which accompanies it. Between the painted window, 
the prayer-book on which its light falls, and the adjacent 
monument, there is consanguinity. The effigies on our 
coins, the signs over shops, the figures that fill every ledger, 
the coats of arms outside the carriage panel, and the pla- 
cards inside the omnibus, are, in common with dolls, blue- 
books, paper-hangings, lineally descended from the rude 
sculpture-paintings in which the Egyptians represented the 
triumphs and worship of their god-kings. Perhaps no 
example can be given which more vividly illustrates the 
multiplicity and heterogeneity of the products that in 
course of time may arise by successive differentiations from 
a common stock. 

Before passing to other classes of facts, it should be 
observed that the evolution of the homogeneous into the 
heterogeneous is displayed not only in the separation of 
Painting and Sculpture from Architecture and from each 
other, and in the greater variety of subjects they embody, 
bat it is further shown in the structure of each work. A 



EVOLUTION OF PAINTING AND STATUARY. 23 

modern picture or statue is of far more heterogeneous 
nature than an ancient one. An Egyptian sculpture-fresco 
represents all its figures as on one plane — that is, at the 
same distance from the eye ; and so is less heterogeneous 
than a painting that represents them as at various distances 
from the eye. It exhibits all objects as exposed to the 
same degree of light ; and so is less heterogeneous than a 
painting which exhibits different objects and different parts 
of each object as in different degrees of light. It uses 
scarcely any but the primary colours, and these in their 
full intensity ; and so is less heterogeneous than a painting 
which, introducing the primary colours but sparingly, em- 
ploys an endless variety of intermediate tints, each of hete- 
rogeneous composition, and differing from the rest not only 
in quality but in intensity. Moreover, we see in these ear- 
liest works a great uniformity of conception. The same 
arrangement of figures is perpetually reproduced — the 
same actions, attitudes, faces, dresses. In Egypt the modes 
of representation were so fixed that it was sacrilege to 
introduce a novelty ; and indeed it could have been only 
in consequence of a fixed mode of representation that a 
system of hieroglyphics became possible. The Assyrian 
bas-reliefs display parallel characters. Deities, kings, at- 
tendants, winged figures and animals, are severally depicted 
in like positions, holding like implements, doing like things, 
and with like expression or non-expression of face. If a 
palm-grove is introduced, all the trees are of the same 
height, have the same number of leaves, and are equidis- 
tant. When water is imitated, each wave is a counterpart 
of the rest ; and the fish, almost always of one kind, are 
evenly distributed over the surface. The beards of the 
kings, the gods, and the winged figures, are everywhere 
similar : as are the manes of the lions, and equally so those 
of the horses. Hair is represented throughout by one form 
of curl. The king's beard is quite architecturally built 



24 PEOGEESS: ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

up of compound tiers of uniform curls, alternating with 
twisted tiers placed in a transverse direction, and arranged 
with perfect regularity ; and the terminal tufts of the bulls' 
tails are represented in exactly the same manner. With- 
out tracing out analogous facts in early Christian art, in 
which, though less striking, they are still visible, the ad" 
vance in heterogeneity will be sufficiently manifest on 
remembering that in the pictures of our own day the com- 
position is endlessly varied ; the attitudes, faces, expres- 
sions, unlike ; the subordinate objects different in size, form, 
position, texture ; and more or less of contrast even in the 
smallest details. Or, if we compare an Egyptian statue, 
seated bolt upright on a block, with hands on knees, fin- 
gers outspread and parallel, eyes' looking straight forward, 
and the two sides perfectly symmetrical in every particu- 
lar, with a statue of the advanced Greek or the modern 
school, which is asymmetrical in respect of the position of 
the head, the body, the limbs, the arrangement of the hair, 
dress, appendages, and in its relations to neighbouring 
objects, we shall see the change from the homogeneous to 
the heterogeneous clearly manifested. 

In the co-ordinate origin and gradual differentiation of 
Poetry, Music and Dancing, we have another series of illus- 
trations. Rhythm in speech, rhythm in sound, and rhythm 
in motion, were in the beginning pai'ts of the same thing, 
and have only in process of time become separate things. 
Among various existing barbarous tribes we find them still 
united. The dances of savages are accompanied by some 
kind of monotonous chant, the clapping of hands, the strik- 
ing of rude instruments : there are measured movements, 
measured words, and measured tones ; and the whole cere- 
mony, usually having reference to war or sacrifice, is of 
governmental character. In the early records of the his- 
toric races we similai'ly find these three forms of metrical 
action united in religious festivals. In the Hebrew writings 



EVOLUTION OF MUSIC AND POETR5T. 25 

we read that the triumphal ode composed by Moses on the 
defeat of the Egyptians, was sung to an accompaniment of 
dancing and timbrels. The Israelites danced and sung " at 
the inauguration of the golden calf. And as it is generally 
agreed that this representation of the Deity was borrowed 
from the mysteries of Apis, it is probable that the dancing 
was copied from that of the Egyptians on those occasions." 
There was an annual dance in Shiloh on the sacred festival ; 
and David danced before the ark. Again, in Greece the 
like relation is everywhere seen : the original type being 
there, as probably in other cases, a simultaneous chanting 
and mimetic representation of the life and adventures of 
the god. The Spartan dances were accompanied by hymns 
and songs ; and in general the Greeks had " no festivals or 
religious assemblies but what were accompanied with songs 
and dances " — both of them being forms of worship used 
before altars. Among the Romans, too, there were sacred 
dances : the Salian and Lupercalian being named as of 
that kind. And even in Christian countries, as at Limoges, 
in comparatively recent times, the people have danced in 
the choir in honour of a saint. The incipient separation 
of these once united arts from each other and from reli- 
gion, was early visible in Greece. Probably diverging from 
dances partly religious, partly warlike, as the Corybantian, 
came the war dances proper, of which there were various 
kinds ; and from these resulted secular dances. Mean- 
while Music and Poetry, though still united, came to have 
an existence separate from dancing. The aboriginal Greek 
poems, religious in subject, were not recited, but chanted ; 
and though at first the chant of the poet was accompanied 
by the dance of the chorus, it ultimately grew into inde- 
pendence. Later still, when the poem had been differen- 
tiated into epic and lyric — when it became the custom to 
sing the lyric and recite the epic — poetry proper was born. 
A.s during the same period musical instruments were being 



26 PROGRESS : ITS LAW AND CATJSE. 

multiplied, we may presume that music came to have an 
existence apart from words. And both of them were be- 
ginning to assume other forms besides the religious. Facts 
having like implications might be cited from the histories 
of later times and peoples: as the practices of our own 
early minstrels, who sang to the harp heroic narratives ver- 
sified by themselves to music of their own composition : 
thus uniting the now separate offices of poet, composer, vo- 
calist, and instrumentalist. But, without further illustra- 
tion, the common origin and gi'adual differentiation of 
Dancing, Poetry, and Music will be sufficiently manifest. 

The advance from the homogeneous to the heterogene- 
ous is displayed not only in the separation of these arts from 
each other and from religion, but also in the multiplied dif- 
ferentiations which each of them afterwards undergoes. 
Not to dwell upon the numberless kinds of dancing that 
have, in course of time, come into use ; and not to occupy 
space in detailing the progress of poetry, as seen in the de- 
velopment of the various forms of metre, of rhyme, and 
of general organization ; let us confine our attention to 
music as a type of the group. As argued by Dr. Burney, 
and as implied by the customs of still extant barbarous 
races, the first musical instruments were, without doubt, 
percussive — sticks, calabashes, tom-toms— and were used 
simply to mark the time of the dance ; and in this constant 
repetition of the same sound, we see music in its most 
homogeneous form. 

The Egyptians had a lyre with three strings. The 
early lyre of the Greeks had four, constituting their tetra- 
chord. In course of some centuries lyres of seven and 
eight strings were employed. And, by the expiration of 
a thousand years, they had advanced to their " great system '' 
of the double octave. Through all which changes there of 
course arose a greater heterogeneity of melody. Simulta.. 
neously there came into use the different modes — Dorian, 



EVOLUTION OF MUSIC AND POETBY. 27 

Ionian, Phrygian, iEolian, and Lydian — answering to our 
keys ; and of these there were ultimately fifteen. As yet, 
however, there was hut little heterogeneity in the time of 
their music. 

Instrumental music during this period heing merely the 
accompaniment of vocal music, and vocal music being com- 
pletely subordinated to words, the singer being also the poet, 
chanting his own compositions and making the lengths of his 
notes agree with the feet of his verses, — there unavoidably 
arose a tiresome uniformity of measure, which, as Dr. Bur- 
ney says, " no resources of melody could disguise." Lacking 
the complex rhythm obtained by our equal bars and unequal 
notes the only rhythm was that produced by the quantity of 
the syllables and was of necessity comparatively monotonous. 
And further, it may be observed that the chant thus result- 
ing, being like recitative, was much less clearly differen- 
tiated from ordinary speech than is our modern song. 

Nevertheless, in virtue of the extended range of notes 
in use, the variety of modes, the occasional variations of 
time consequent on changes of metre, and the multiplica- 
tion of instruments, music had, towards the close of Greek 
civilization, attained to considerable heterogeneity — not 
indeed as compared with our music, but as compared with 
that which preceded it. As yet, however, there existed 
nothing but melody : harmony was unknown. It was not 
until Christian church-music had reached some development, 
that music in parts was evolved ; and then it came into 
existence through a very unobtrusive differentiation. Diffi- 
cult as it may be to conceive a priori how the advance 
from melody to harmony could take place without a sud- 
den leap, it is none the less true that it did so. The 
circumstance which prepared the way for it was the em- 
ployment of two choirs singing alternately the same air. 
Afterwards it became the practice — very possibly first 
suggested by a mistake — for the second choir to com 



28 progress: its law and cause. 

mence before the first had ceased ; thus producing 
fugue. 

With, the simple airs then in use, a partially harmo 
nious fugue might not improbably thus result : and a very 
partially harmonious fugue satisfied the ears of that age, 
as we know from still preserved examples. The idea hav- 
ing once been given, the composing of airs productive of 
fugal harmony would naturally grow up ; as in some way 
it did grow up out of this alternate choir-singing. And 
from the fugue to concerted music of two, three, four, and 
more parts, the transition was easy. "Without pointing 
out in detail the increasing complexity that resulted from 
introducing notes of various lengths, from the multiplica- 
tion of keys, from the use of accidentals, from varieties of 
time, and so forth, it needs but to contrast music as it is, 
with music as it was, to see how immense is the increase 
of heterogeneity. We see this if, looking at music in its 
ensemble, we enumerate its many different genera and 
species — if we consider the divisions into vocal, instrumen- 
tal, and mixed ; and their subdivisions into music for differ- 
ent voices and different instruments — if we observe the 
many forms of sacred music, from the simple hymn, the 
chant, the canon, motet, anthem, &c, up to the oratorio ; 
and the still more numerous forms of secular music, from 
the ballad up to the serenata, from the instrumental solo up 
to the symphony. 

Again, the same truth is seen on comparing any one 
sample of aboriginal music with a sample of modern music 
— even an ordinary song for the piano ; which we find to 
be relatively highly heterogeneous, not only in resj>ect of 
the varieties in the pitch and in the length of the notes, 
the number of different notes sounding at the same instant 
in company with the voice, and the variations of strength 
with which they are sounded and sung, but in respect of 
the changes of key, the changes of time, the changes of 



EVOLUTION OF LITERATURE. 22 

timbre of the voice, and the many other modifications of 
expression. While between the old monotonous dance- 
chant and a grand opera of our own day, with its endless 
orchestral complexities and vocal combinations, the con- 
trast in heterogeneity is so extreme that it seems scarcely 
credible that the one should have been the ancestor of the 
other. 

Were they needed, many further illustrations might be 
cited. Going back to the early time when the deeds of 
the god-king, chanted and mimetically represented in 
dances round his altar, were further narrated in picture- 
writings on the walls of temples and palaces, and so con- 
stituted a rude literature, we might trace the development 
of Literature through phases in which, as in the Hebrew 
Scriptures, it presents in one w T ork theology, cosmogony, 
history, biography, civil law, ethics, poetry ; through other 
phases in which, as in the Iliad, the religious, martial, his- 
torical, the epic, dramatic, and lyric elements are similarly 
commingled ; down to its present heterogeneous develop- 
ment, in which its divisions and subdivisions are so numer- 
ous and varied as to defy complete classification. Or we 
might trace out the evolution of Science ; beginning with 
the era in which it was not yet differentiated from Art, 
and was, in union with Art, the handmaid of Religion ; pass- 
ing through the era in which the sciences were so few and 
rudimentary, as to be simultaneously cultivated by the same 
philosophers ; and ending with the era in wdiich the genera 
and species are so numerous that few can enumerate them, 
and no one can adequately grasp even one genus. Or we 
might do the like with Architecture, with the Drama, with 
Dress. 

But doubtless the reader is already weary of illustra- 
tions ; and our promise has been amply fulfilled. We 
believe we have shown beyond question, that that which 
die German physiologists have found to be the law of 



30 progress: its i,aw and cause. 

organic development, is the law of all development. The 
advance from the simple to the complex, through a process 
of successive differentiations, is seen alike in the earliest 
changes of the Universe to which we can reason our way 
back; and in the earliest changes which we can induc- 
tively establish ; it is seen in the geologic and climatic 
evolution of the Earth, and of every single organism on its 
surface ; it is seen in the evolution of Humanity, whether 
contemplated in the civilized individual, or in the aggre- 
gation of races ; it is seen in the evolution of Society in 
respect alike of its political, its religious, and its economi- 
cal organization ; and it is seen in the evolution of all 
those endless concrete and abstract products of human 
activity which constitute the environment of our daily life. 
From the remotest past which Science can fathom, up to 
the novelties of yesterday, that in which Progress essen- 
tially consists, is the transformation of the homogeneous 
into the heterogeneous. 

And now, from this uniformity of procedure, may we 
not infer some fundamental necessity whence it results ? 
May we not rationally seek for some all-pervading princi- 
ple which determines this all-pervading process of things ? 
Does not the universality of the law imply a universal 
cause f 

That we can fathom such cause, noumenally considered, 
is not to be supposed. To do this would be to solve that 
ultimate mystery which must ever transcend human intelli- 
gence. But it still may be possible for us to reduce the 
law of all Progress, above established, from the condition 
of an empirical generalization, to the condition of a ra- 
tional generalization. Just as it was possible to interpret 
Kepler's laws as necessary consequences of the law of gravi- 
tation ; so it may be possible to interpret this law of Pro- 
gress, in its multiform manifestations, as the necessary con 



NECESSARY NATURE OF THE CAUSE. 3 i 

sequence of some similarly universal principle. As gravi- 
tation was assignable as the cause of each of the groups of 
phenomena which Kepler formulated ; so may some equally 
simple attribute of things be assignable as the cause of each 
of the groups of phenomena formulated in the foregoing 
pages. We may be able to affiliate all these varied and 
complex evolutions of the homogeneous into the heteroge- 
neous, upon certain simple facts of immediate experi- 
ence, which, in virtue of endless repetition, we regard as 
necessary. 

The probability of a common cause, and the possibility 
of formulating it, being granted, it will be well, before 
going further, to consider what must be the general 
characteristics of such cause, and in what direction we 
ought to look for it. We can with certainty predict that 
it has a high degree of generality ; seeing that it is com- 
mon to such infinitely varied phenomena : just in propor- 
tion to the universality of its application must be the 
abstractness of its character. We need not expect to see 
in it an obvious solution of this or that form of Progress ; 
because it equally refers to forms of Progress bearing little 
apparent resemblance to them : its association with multi- 
form orders of facts, involves its dissociation from any par- 
ticular order of facts. Being that which determines Pro- 
gress of every kind — astronomic, geologic, organic, ethnolo- 
gic, social, economic, artistic, &c. — it must be concerned 
with some fundamental attribute possessed in common by 
these ; and must be expressible in terms of this fundamen- 
tal attribute. The only obvious respect in which all kinds 
of Progress are alike, is, that they are modes of change ; and 
hence, in some characteristic of changes in general, the de- 
sired solution will probably be found. We may suspect 
d priori that in some law of change lies the explanation of 
this universal transformation of the homogeneous into the 
heterogeneous. 



32 PROGRESS : ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

Thus much premised, we pass at once to the statement 
of the law, which is this : — Every active force produces 
more than one change — every cause produces more than one 
effect. 

Before this law can be duly comprehended, a few exam- 
ples must be looked at. When one body is struck against 
another, that which we usually regard as the effect, is a 
change of position or motion in one or both bodies. But 
a moment's thought shows us that this is a careless and 
very incomplete view of the matter. Besides the visible 
mechanical result, sound is produced ; or, to speak accurate- 
ly, a vibration in one or both bodies, and in the surround- 
ing air : and under some circumstances we call this the ef- 
fect. Moreover, the air has not only been made to vibrate, 
but has had sundry currents caused in it by the transit of 
the bodies. Further, there is a disarrangement of the par- 
ticles of the two bodies in the neighbourhood of their point 
of collision ; amounting in some cases to a visible conden- 
sation. Yet more, this condensation is accompanied by the 
disengagement of heat. In some cases a spark — that is, 
light — results, from the incandescence of a portion struck 
off; and sometimes this incandescence is associated with 
chemical combination. 

Thus, by the original mechanical force expended in the 
collision, at least five, and often more, different kinds of 
changes have been produced. Take, again, the lighting of 
a candle. Primarily this is a chemical change consequent 
on a rise of temperature. The process of combination 
having once been set going by extraneous heat, there is a 
continued formation of carbonic acid, water, &c. — in itself 
a result more complex than the extraneous heat that first 
caused it. But accompanying this process of combination 
there is a production of heat ; there is a production of light ; 
there is an ascending column of hot gases generated ; there 
are currents established in the surrounding air. Moreover 



MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 33 

the decomposition of one force into many forces does not 
end here : each of the several changes produced becomes 
the parent of further changes. The carbonic acid given 
off will by and by combine with some base; or under the 
influence of sunshine give up its carbon to the leaf of a 
plant. The water will modify the hygrometric state of the 
air around ; oi*, if the current of hot gases containing it 
come against a cold body, will be condensed : altering the 
temperature, and perhaps the chemical state, of the surface 
it covers. The heat given out melts the subjacent tallow, 
and expands whatever it warms. The light, falling on vari- 
ous substances, calls forth from them reactions by which 
it is modified ; and so divers colours are produced. Similarly 
even with these secondary actions, which may be traced out 
into ever-multiplying ramifications, until they become too 
minute to be appreciated. And thus it is with all changes 
whatever. No case can be named in which an active force 
does not evolve forces of several kinds, and each of these, 
other groups of forces. Universally the effect is more com- 
plex than the cause. 

Doubtless the reader already foresees the course of our 
argument. This multiplication of results, which is displayed 
in every event of to-day, has been going on from the begin- 
ning ; and is true of the grandest phenomena of the uni- 
verse as of the most insignificant. From the law that every 
active force produces more than one change, it is an inevit- 
able corollary that through all time there has been an ever- 
growing complication of things. Starting with the ultimate 
fact that every cause produces more than one effect, we may 
readily see that throughout creation there must have gone 
on, and must still go on, a never- ceasing transformation of 
the homogeneous into the heterogeneous. But let us trace 
out this truth in detail.* 

* A correlative truth which ought also to be taken into, account (that 
&e state of homogeneity is one of unstable equilibrium), but which it 



34 l'KOGEESS : ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

Without committing ourselves to it as more than a spec- 
ulation, though a highly probable one, let us again com- 
mence with the evolution of the solar system out of a ne- 
bulous medium.* From the mutual attraction of the atoms 
of a diffused mass whose form is unsymmetrical, there re- 
sults not only condensation but rotation : gravitation simul- 
taneously generates both the centripetal and the centrifugal 
forces. While the condensation and the rate of rotation 
are progressively increasing, the approach of the atoms ne- 
cessarily generates a progressively increasing temperature. 
As this temperature rises, light begins to be evolved ; and 
ultimately there results a revolving sphere of fluid matter 
radiating intense heat and light — a sun. 

There are good reasons for believing that, in consequence 
of the high tangential velocity, and consequent centrifugal 
force, acquired by the outer parts of the condensing nebu- 
lous mass, there must be a periodical detachment of rota- 
ting rings ; and that, from the breaking up of these nebu- 
lous rings, there must arise masses which in the course of 
their condensation repeat the actions of the parent mass, 
and so produce planets and their satellites — an inference 
strongly supported by the still extant rings of Saturn. 

Should it hereafter be satisfactorily shown that planets 
and satellites were thus generated, a striking illustration 
will be afforded of the highly heterogeneous effects pro- 
duced by the primary homogeneous cause ; but it will 
serve our present purpose to point to the fact that from the 

would greatly encumber the argument to exemplify in connection with 
the above, will be found developed in the essay on Transcendental Physio- 

* The idea that the Nebular Hypothesis has been disproved because 
what were thought to be existing nebulae have been resolved into clusters 
of stars is almost beneath notice. A priori it was highly improbable, if 
not impossible, that nebulous masses should still remain uncondensed, 
while others have been condensed millions of years ago. 



EFFECTS OF THE EAKTh's INCANDESCENCE. 35 

mutual attraction of the particles of an irregular nebulous 
mass there result condensation, rotation, heat, and light. 

It follows as a corollary from the Nebular Hypothesis, 
that the Earth must at first have been incandescent ; and 
whether the Nebular Hypothesis be true or not, this origi 
nal incandescence of the Earth is now inductively established 
—-or, if not established, at least rendered so highly pro- 
bable that it is a generally admitted geological doctrine. 
Let us look first at the astronomical attributes of this once 
molten globe. From its rotation there result the oblate- 
ness of its form, the alternations of day and night, and (un- 
der the influence of the moon) the tides, aqueous and at- 
mospheric. From the inclination of its axis, there result 
the precession of the equinoxes and the many differences of 
the seasons, both simultaneous and successive, that pervade 
its surface. Thus the multiplication of effects is obvious 
Several of the differentiations due to the gradual cooling 
of the Earth have been already noticed — as the formation 
of a crust, the solidification of sublimed elements, the pre 
cipitation of water, &c, — and we here again refer to then" 
merely to point out that they are simultaneous effects of 
the one cause, diminishing heat. 

Let us now, however, observe the multiplied changes 
afterwards arising from the continuance of this one cause. 
The cooling of the Earth involves its contraction. Hence the 
solid crust first formed is presently too large for the shrink- 
ing nucleus ; and as it cannot support itself, inevitably follows 
the nucleus. But a spheroidal envelope cannot sink down 
into contact with a smaller internal spheroid, without disrup- 
tion ; it must run into wrinkles as the rind of an apple does 
when the bulk of its interior decreases from evaporation. 
As the cooling progresses and the envelope thickens, the 
ridges consequent on these contractions must become 
greater, rising ultimately into hills and mountains ; and the 
later systems of mountains thus produced must not only be 



56 PROGRESS I ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

higher, as we find them to be, but they must be longer, as 
we also find them to be. Thus, leaving out of view other 
modifying forces, we see what immense heterogeneity of 
surface has arisen from the one cause, loss of heat — a heto- 
rogeneity which the telescope shows us to be paralleled on 
the face of the moon, where aqueous and atmospherio 
agencies have been absent. 

But we have yet to notice another kind of heterogeneity 
of surface similarly and simultaneously caused. While the 
Earth's crust was still thin, the ridges produced by its con- 
traction must not only have been small, but the spaces be- 
tween these ridges must have rested with great evenness 
upon the subjacent liquid spheroid ; and the water in those 
arctic and antarctic regions in which it first condensed, must 
have been evenly distributed. But as fast as the crust grew 
thicker and gained corresponding strength, the lines of 
fracture from time to time caused in it, must have occurred 
at greater distances apart ; the intermediate surfaces must 
have followed the contracting nucleus with less uniformity ; 
and there must have resulted larger areas of land and wa- 
ter. If any one, after wrapping up an orange in wet tissue 
paper, and observing not only how small are the wrinkles, 
but how evenly the intervening spaces lie upon the surface 
of the orange, will then wrap it up in thick cartridge-paper, 
and note both the greater height of the ridges and the 
much larger spaces throughout which the paper does not 
touch the orange, he will realize the fact, that as the Earth's 
solid envelope grew thicker, the areas of elevation and de- 
pression must have become greater. In place of islands 
more or less homogeneously scattered over an all-embra- 
cing sea, there must have gradually arisen heterogeneous 
ai'rangements of continent and ocean, such as we now know. 

Once more, this double change in the extent and in the 
elevation of the lands, involved yet another species of he- 
terogeneity, that of coast-line. A tolerably even surface 



CHANGES PRODUCED BY AIR AND W ATER. 37 

raised out of the ocean, must have a simple, regular sea- 
margin; but a surface varied by table- lands and intersected 
by mountain-chains must, when raised out of the ocean, 
have an outline extremely irregular both in its leading 
features and in its details. Thus endless is the accumula- 
tion of geological and geographical results slowly brought 
about by this one cause — the contraction of the Earth. 

When we pass from the agency which geologists term 
igneous, to aqueous and atmospheric agencies, we see the 
like ever-growing complications of effects. The denuding 
actions of air and water have, from the beginning, been 
modifying every exposed surface ; everywhere causing 
many different changes. Oxidation, heat, wind, frost, 
rain, glaciers, rivers, tides, waves, have been unceasingly 
producing disintegration ; varying in kind and amount ac- 
cording to local circumstances. Acting upon a tract of 
granite, they here work scarcely an appreciable effect ; 
there cause exfoliations of the surface, and a resulting heap 
of debris and boulders ; and elsewhere, after decomposing 
the feldspar into a white clay, carry away this and the ac- 
companying quartz and mica, and deposite them in separate 
beds, fluviatile and marine. When the exposed land con- 
sists of several unlike formations, sedimentary and igneous, 
the denudation produces changes proportionably more he- 
terogeneous. The formations being disintegrable in different 
degrees, there follows an increased irregularity of surface. 
The areas drained by different rivers being differently con- 
stituted, these rivers carry down to the sea different com- 
binations of ingredients; and so sundry new strata of 
distinct composition are formed. 

And here indeed we may see very simply illustrated, 
the truth, which we shall presently have to trace out in 
aaore involved cases, that in proportion to the heterogeneity 
of the object or objects on which any force expends itself, 
is the heterogeneity of the results. A continent of com 



S8 PROGRESS : ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

plex structure, exposing many strata irregularly distributed, 
raised to various levels, tilted up at all angles, must, undei 
the same denuding agencies, give origin to immensely mul- 
tiplied results ; each district must be differently modified ; 
each river must carry down a different kind of detritus ; 
each deposit must be differently distributed by the en- 
tangled currents, tidal and other, which wash the con- 
torted shores; and this multiplication of results must 
manifestly be greatest where the complexity of the surface 
is greatest. 

It is out of the question here to trace in detail the genesis 
of those endless complications described by Geology and 
Physical Geography : else we might show how the general 
truth, that every active force produces more than one 
change, is exemplified in the highly involved flow of the 
tides, in the ocean currents, in the winds, in the distribu- 
tion of rain, in the distribution of heat, and so forth. But 
not to dwell upon these, let us, for the fuller elucidation 
of this truth in relation to the inorganic world, consider 
what would be the consequences of some extensive cos- 
mical revolution — say the subsidence of Central America. 

The immediate results of the disturbance would them- 
selves be sufficiently complex. Besides the numberless 
dislocations of strata, the ejections of igneous matter, the 
propagation of earthquake vibrations thousands of miles 
around, the loud explosions, and the escape of gases ; there 
would be the rush of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to 
supply the vacant space, the subsequent recoil of enormous 
waves, which would traverse both these oceans and produce 
myriads of changes along their shores, the corresponding 
atmospheric waves complicated by the currents surrounding 
each volcanic vent, and the electrical discharges with which 
?uch disturbances are accompanied. But these temporary 
effects would be insignificant compared with the permanent 
ones. The complex currents of the Atlantic and Pacific 



EFFECTS OF A SUBSIDENCE OF THE LAND. 39 

would be altered in direction and amount. The distribu- 
tion of heat achieved by these ocean currents would be 
different from what it is. The arrangement of the isother- 
mal lines, not even on the neighbouring continents, but 
even throughout Europe, would be changed. The tides 
would flow differently from what they do now. There 
would be more or less modification of the winds in their 
periods, strengths, directions, qualities. Rain would fall 
scarcely anywhere at the same times and in the same quan- 
tities as at present. In short, the meteorological conditions 
thousands of miles off, on all sides, would be more or less 
revolutionized. 

Thus, without taking into account the infinitude of 
modifications which these changes of climate would pro- 
duce upon the flora and fauna, both of land and sea, the 
reader will see the immense heterogeneity of the results 
wrought out by one force, when that force expends itself 
upon a previously complicated area ; and he will readily 
draw the corollary that from the beginning the complica- 
tion has advanced at an increasing rate. 

Before going on to show how organic progress also 
depends upon the universal law that every force produces 
more than one change, we have to notice the manifestation 
of this law in yet another species of inorganic progress — 
namely, chemical. The same general causes that have 
wrought out the heterogeneity of the Earth, physically 
considered, have simultaneously wrought out its chemical 
heterogeneity. Without dwelling upon the general fact 
that the forces which have been increasing the variety and 
complexity of geological formations, have, at the same 
time, been bringing into contact elements not previously 
exposed to each other under conditions favourable to union, 
and so have been adding to the number of chemical com- 
pounds, let us pass to the more important complications 
that have resulted from the cooling of the Earth. 



40 PROGRESS : ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

There is every reason to believe that at an extreme heat 
the elements cannot combine. Even under such heat aa 
can be artificially produced, some very strong affinities 
yield, as for instance, that of oxygen for hydrogen; and 
the great majority of chemical compounds are decomposed 
at much lower temperatures. But without insisting upon 
the highly probable inference, that when the Earth was in 
its first state of incandescence there were no chemical com- 
binations at all, it will suffice our purpose to point to the 
unquestionable fact that the compounds that can exist at 
the highest temperatures, and which must, therefore, have 
been the first that were formed as the Earth cooled, are 
those of the simplest constitutions. The protoxides — in- 
cluding under that head the alkalies, earths, &c. — are, as a 
class, the most stable compounds we know : most of them 
resisting decomposition by any heat we can generate. 
These, consisting severally of one atom of each component 
element, are combinations of the simplest order — are but 
one degree less homogeneous than the elements themselves. 
More heterogeneous than these, less stable, and therefore 
later in the Earth's history, are the deutoxides, tritoxides, 
peroxides, &c. ; in which two, three, four, or more atoms 
of oxygen are united with one atom of metal or other ele- 
ment. Higher than these in heterogeneity are the hydrates; 
in which an oxide of hydrogen, united with an oxide of 
some other element, forms a substance whose atoms sever- 
ally contain at least four ultimate atoms of three different 
kinds. Yet more heterogeneous and less stable still are 
the salts ; which present us with compound atoms each 
made up of five, six, seven, eight, ten, twelve, or more 
atoms, of three, if not more, kinds. Then there are the 
hydrated salts, of a yet greater heterogeneity, which un- 
dergo partial decomposition at much lower temperatures. 
After them come the further-complicated supersalts and 
iouble salts, having a stability again decreased : and so 



CHEMICAL EFFECTS OF DECREASING HEAT. 41 

throughout. Without entering into qualifications for 
which we lack space, we believe no chemist will deny it to 
be a general law of these inorganic combinations that, 
other things equal, the stability decreases as the complexity 
increases. 

And then when we pass to the compounds of organic 
chemistry, we find this general law still further exemplified °. 
we find much greater complexity and much less stability. 
An atom of albumen, for instance, consists of 482 ultimate 
atoms of five different kinds. Fibrine, still more intricate 
in constitution, contains in each atom, 29S atoms of carbon, 
40 of nitrogen, 2 of sulphur, 228 of hydrogen, and 92 of 
oxygen — in all, 660 atoms ; or, more strictly speaking- 
equivalents. And these two substances are so unstable as 
to decompose at quite ordinary temperatures ; as that to 
which the outside of a joint of roast meat is exposed. 
Thus it is manifest that the present chemical heterogene- 
ity of the Earth's surface has arisen by degrees, as the de- 
crease of heat has permitted ; and that it has shown itself 
in three forms — first, in the multiplication of chemical com- 
pounds; second, in the greater number of different ele- 
ments contained in the more modern of these compounds : 
and third, in the higher and more varied multiples in which 
these more numerous elements combine. 

To say that this advance in chemical heterogeneity is 
due to the one cause, diminution of the Earth's tempera- 
ture, would be to say too much ; for it is clear that aque- 
ous and atmospheric agencies have been concerned ; and, 
further, that the affinities of the elements themselves are 
implied. The cause has all along been a composite one : 
the cooling of the Earth having been simply the most gen- 
eral of the concurrent causes, or assemblage of conditions. 
And here, indeed, it may be remarked that in the several 
classes of facts already dealt with (excepting, perhaps, the 
first), and still more in those with which we shall presently 



42 PROGRESS : ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

deal, the causes are more or less compound ; as indeed are 
nearly all causes with which we are acquainted. Scarcely 
any change can with logical accuracy be wholly ascribed to 
one agency, to the neglect of the permanent or temporary 
conditions under which only this agency produces the 
change. But as it does not materially affect our argument, 
We prefer, for simplicity's sake, to use throughout the popu- 
lai mode of expression. 

Perhaps it will be further objected, that to assign loss 
of heat as the cause of any changes, is to attribute these 
changes not to a force, but to the absence of a force. And 
this is true. Strictly speaking, the changes should be at- 
tributed to those forces which come into action when the 
antagonist force is withdrawn. But though there is an in- 
accuracy in saying that the freezing of water is due to the 
loss of its heat, no practical error arises from it ; nor will 
a parallel laxity of expression vitiate our statements respect- 
ing the multiplication of effects. Indeed, the objection 
serves but to draw attention to the fact, that not only does 
the exertion of a force produce more than one change, but 
the withdrawal of a force produces more than one change. 
And this suggests that perhaps the most correct statement 
of our general principle would be its most abstract state- 
ment — every change is followed by more than one othei 
change. 

Returning to the thread of our exposition, we have next 
to trace out, in organic progress, this same all-pervading 
principle. And here, where the evolution of the homoge- 
neous into the heterogeneous was first observed, the produc- 
tion of many changes by one cause is least easy to demon- 
strate. The development of a seed into a plant, or an 
ovum into an animal, is so gradual, while the forces which 
determine it are so involved, and at the same time so unob- 
trusive, that it is difficult to detect the multiplication of effects 
which is elsewhere so obvious. Nevertheless, guided by 



MULTIPLIED ORGANIC EFFECTS. 43 

indirect evidence, we may pretty safely reach the conclu- 
sion that here too the law holds. 

Observe, first, how numerous are the effects which any 
marked change works upon an adult organism — a human 
being, for instance. An alarming sound or sight, besides 
the impressions on the organs of sense and the nerves, may 
produce a start, a scream, a distortion of the face, a tremb- 
ling consequent upon a general muscular relaxation, a 
burst of perspiration, an excited action of the heart, a 
rush of blood to the brain, followed possibly by arrest of 
the heart's action and by syncope : and if the system be 
feeble, an indisposition with its long train of complicated 
symptoms may set in. Similarly in cases of disease. A 
minute portion of the small-pox virus introduced into 
the system, will, in a severe case, cause, during the first 
stage, rigors, heat of skin, accelerated pulse, furred 
tongue, loss of appetite, thirst, epigastric uneasiness, 
vomiting, headache, pains in the back and limbs, muscular 
weakness, convulsions, delirium, &c. ; in the second stage, 
cutaneous eruption, itching, tingling, sore throat, swelled 
fauces, salivation, cough, hoarseness, dyspnoea, &c. ; and in 
the third stage, oedeniatous inflammations, pneumonia, pleuri- 
sy, diarrhoea, inflammation of the brain, ophthalmia, erysipe- 
las, &c. : each of which enumerated symptoms is itself more 
or less complex. Medicines, special foods, better air, might 
in like manner be instanced as producing multiplied results. 

Now it needs only to consider that the many changes 
thus wrought by one force upon an adult organism, will be 
in part paralleled in an embryo organism, to understand 
how here also, the evolution of the homogeneous into the 
heterogeneous may be due to the production of many 
effects by one cause. The external heat and other agen- 
cies which determine the first complications of the germ, 
may, by acting upon these, superinduce further complica- 
tions ; upon these still higher and more numerous ones ; 



44 progress: its law and cause. 

and so on continually : each organ as it is developed ser« 
ving, by its actions and reactions upon the rest, to initiate 
new complexities. The first pulsations of the foetal heart 
must simultaneously aid the unfolding of every part. The 
growth of each tissue, by taking from the blood special 
proportions of elements, must modify the constitution of 
the blood ; and so must modify the nutrition of all the 
other tissues. The heart's action, implying as it does a cer- 
tain waste, necessitates an addition to the blood of effete 
matters, which must influence the rest of the system, and 
perhaps, as some think, cause the formation of excretory 
organs. The nervous connections established among the 
viscera must further multiply their mutual influences : and 
so continually. 

Still stronger becomes the probability of this view when 
we call to mind the fact, that the same germ may be 
evolved into different forms according to circumstances. 
Thus, during its earlier stages, every embryo is sexless — 
becomes either male or female as the balance of forces act- 
ing upon it determines. Again, it is a well-established fact 
that the larva of a working-bee will develop into a queen- 
bee, if, before it is too late, its food be changed to that on 
which the larvae of queen-bees are fed. Even more remark- 
able is the case of certain entozoa. The ovum of a tape- 
worm, getting into its natural habitat, the intestine, unfolds 
into the well-known form of its parent ; but if carried, as 
it frequently is, into other parts of the system, it becomes 
a sac-like creature, called by naturalists the JSchinococcus 
— a creature so extremely different from the tape-worm in 
aspect and structure, that only after careful investigations 
has it been proved to have the same origin. All which 
instances imply that each advance in embryonic complica- 
tion results from the action of incident forces upon the 
complication previously existing. 

Indeed, we may find & priori reason to think that the 






MULTIPLIED ORGANIC EFFECIS. 4:5 

evolution proceeds after this manner. For since it is no^ 
known that no germ, animal or vegetable, contains the 
slightest rudiment, trace, or indication of the future organ- 
ism — now that the microscope has shown us that the first 
process set up in every fertilized germ, is a process of re- 
peated spontaneons fissions ending in the production of a 
mass of cells, not one of which exhibits any special charac- 
ter: there seems no alternative but to suppose that the 
partial organization at any moment subsisting in a growing 
embryo, is transformed by the agencies acting upon it into 
the succeeding phase of organization, and this into the 
next, until, through ever-increasing complexities, the ulti- 
mate form is reached. Thus, though the subtilty of the 
forces and the slowness of the results ; prevent us from 
directly showing that the stages of increasing heterogeneity 
through which every embryo passes, severally arise from 
the production of many changes by one force, yet, indi- 
rectly, we have strong evidence that they do so. 

We have marked how multitudinous are the effects 
which one cause may generate in an adult organism ; that 
a like multiplication of effects must happen in the unfold- 
ing organism, we have observed in sundry illustrative 
cases ; further, it has been pointed out that the ability 
which like germs have to originate unlike forms, implies that 
the successive transformations result from the new changes 
superinduced on previous changes ; and we have seen that 
structureless as every germ originally is, the development 
of an organism out of it is otherwise incomprehensible 
Not indeed that we can thus really explain the production 
of any plant or animal. We are still in the dark respect- 
ing those mysterious properties in virtue of which the 
germ, when subject to fit influences, undergoes the special 
changes that begin the series of transformations. All we 
aim to show, is, that given a germ possessing these myste- 
rious properties, the evolution of an organism from it, 



tC) PKOGEESS I ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

probably depends upon that multiplication of effects which 
we have seen to be the cause of progress in general, so far 
as we have yet traced it. 

When, leaving the development of single plants and 
animals, we pass to that of the Earth's flora and fauna, the 
course of our argument again becomes clear and simple. 
Though, as was admitted in the first part of this article, 
the fragmentary facts Palaeontology has accumulated, do 
not clearly warrant us in saying that, in the lapse of geo- 
logic time, there have been evolved more heterogeneous 
organisms, and more heterogeneous assemblages of organ- 
isms, yet we shall now see that there must ever have been 
a tendency towards these results. We shall find that the 
production of many effects by one cause, which, as already 
shown, has been all along increasing the physical hetero- 
geneity of the Earth, has further involved an increasing 
heterogeneity in its flora and fauna, individually and col- 
lectively. An illustration will make this clear. 

Suppose that by a series of upheavals, occurring, as 
they are now known to do, at long intervals, the East In- 
dian Archipelago were to be, step by step, raised into a 
continent, and a chain of mountains formed along the axis 
of elevation. By the first of these upheavals, the plants 
and animals inhabiting Borneo, Sumatra, New Guinea, and 
the rest, would be subjected to slightly modified sets of 
conditions. The climate in general would be altered in 
temperature, in humidity, and in its periodical variations ; 
while the local differences would be multiplied. These 
modifications would affect, perhaps inappreciably, the entire 
flora and fauna of the region. The change of level would 
produce additional modifications : varying in different spe- 
cies, and also in different members of the same species, 
according to their distance from the axis of elevation. 
Plants, growing only on the sea-shore in special localities, 
might become extinct. Others, living only in swamps of a 



CHANGES OF THE EARTH'S FLORA AND FAUNA. 47 

certain humidity, would, if they survived at all, probably 
undergo visible changes of appearance. While still greater 
alterations would occur in the plants gradually spreading 
over the lands newly raised above the sea. The animals 
and insects living on these modified plants, would them- 
selves be in some degree modified by change of food, as 
well as by change of climate ; and the modification would 
be more marked where, from the dwindling or disappear- 
ance of one kind of plant, an allied kind was eaten. In the 
lapse of the many generations arising before the next up- 
heaval, the sensible or insensible alterations thus produced 
in each species would become organized — there would be 
a more or less complete adaptation to the new conditions. 
The next upheaval would superinduce further organic 
changes, implying wider divergences from the primary 
forms ; and so repeatedly. 

But now let it be observed that the revolution thus 
resulting would not be a substitution of a thousand more 
or less modified species for the thousand original species ; 
but in place of the thousand original species there would 
arise several thousand species, or varieties, or changed 
forms. Each species being distributed over an area of 
some extent, and tending continually to colonize the new 
area exposed, its different members would be subject to 
different sets of changes. Plants and animals spreading 
towards the equator would not be affected in the same way 
with others spreading from it. Those spreading towards 
the new shores would undergo changes unlike the changes 
undergone by those spreading into the mountains. Thus, 
each original race of organisms, would become the root 
from which diverged several races differing more or lohs 
from it and from each other ; and while some of these 
might subsequently disappear, probably more than one 
would survive in the next geologic period : the very disper- 
sion itself increasing the chances of survival. Not onlj 



48 progress: its law and cause. 

would there be certain modifications thus caused by change 
of physical conditions and food, but also in some cases 
other modifications caused by change of habit. The fauna 
of each island, peopling, step by step, the newly-raised 
tracts, would eventually come in contact with the faunas 
of other islands ; and some members of these other faunas 
would be unlike any creatures before seen. Herbivores 
meeting with new beasts of prey, would, in some cases, be 
led into modes of defence or escape differing from those 
previously used ; and simultaneously the beasts of prey 
would modify their modes of pursuit and attack. We 
know that when circumstances demand it, such changes of 
habit do take place in animals ; and we know that if the 
new habits become the dominant ones, they must eventually 
in some degree alter the organization. 

Observe, now, however, a further consequence. There 
must arise not simply a tendency towards the differentia- 
tion of each race of organisms into several races ; but also 
a tendency to the occasional production of a somewhat 
higher organism. Taken in the mass these divergent varie- 
ties which have been caused by fresh physical conditions 
and habits of life, will exhibit changes quite indefinite in 
kind and degree ; and changes that do not necessarily con- 
stitute an advance. Probably in most cases the modified 
type will be neither more nor less heterogeneous than the 
original one. In some cases the habits of life adopted 
being simpler than before, a less heterogeneous structure 
will result : there will be a retrogradation. But it must 
now and then occur, that some division of a species, falling 
into circumstances which give it rather more complex expe- 
riences, and demand actions somewhat more involved, will 
have certain of its organs further differentiated in propor- 
tionately small degrees, — will become slightly more hetero- 
geneous. 

Thus, in the natural course of things, there will from 



TNCEEASING DIVEBGENCE OF THE ANIMAL EACE8. 49 

time to time arise an increased heterogeneity both of the 
Earth's flora and fauna, and of individual races included in 
them. Omitting detailed explanations, and allowing for 
the qualifications which cannot here be specified, we think 
it is clear that geological mutations have all along tended 
to complicate the forms of life, whether regarded sepa- 
rately or collectively. The same causes which have led to 
the evolution of the Earth's crust from the simple into the 
complex, have simultaneously led to a parallel evolution of 
the Life upon its surface. In this case, as in previous ones, 
we see that the transformation of the homogeneous into 
the heterogeneous is consequent upon the universal princi- 
ple, that every active force produces more than one change. 

The deduction here drawn from the established truths 
of geology and the general laws of life, gains immensely 
in weight on finding it to be in harmony with an induction 
drawn from direct experience. Just that divergence of 
many races from one race, which we inferred must have 
been continually occurring during geologic time, we know 
to have occurred during the pre-historic and historic pe- 
riods, in man and domestic animals. And just that multi- 
plication of effects which we concluded must have pro- 
duced the first, we see has produced the last. Single 
causes, as famine, pressure of population, war, have period- 
ically led to further dispersions of mankind and of depend- 
ent creatures : each such dispersion initiating new modifi 
cations, new varieties of type. Whether all the human 
races be or be not derived from one stock, philology makes 
it clear that whole groups of races now easily distinguisha- 
ble from each other, were originally one race, — that the 
diffusion of one race into different climates and conditions 
*)f existence, has produced many modified forms of it. 

Similarly with domestic animals. Though in some cases 
™ as that of dogs — community of origin will perhaps be 
disputed, yet in other cases — as that of the sheep or the 



50 PROGRESS ! ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

cattle of our own country — it will not be questioned that 
local differences of climate, food, and treatment, have trans- 
formed one original breed into numerous breeds now be- 
come so far distinct as to produce unstable hybrids. More- 
over, through the complications of effects flowing from 
bingle causes, we here find, what we before inferred, not 
only an increase of general heterogeneity, but also of spe« 
cial heterogeneity. While of the divergent divisions and 
subdivisions of the human race, many have undergone 
changes not constituting an advance ; while in some the 
type may have degraded ; in others it has become decidedly 
more heterogeneous. The civilized European departs more 
widely from the vertebrate archetype than does the savage. 
Thus, both the law and the cause of progress, which, from 
lack of evidence, can be but hypothetically substantiated 
in respect of the earlier forms of life on our globe, can bo 
actually substantiated in respect of the latest forms. 

If the advance of Man towards greater heterogeneity 
is traceable to the production of many effects by one canse, 
still more clearly may the advance of Society towards 
greater heterogeneity be so explained. Consider the 
growth of an industrial organization. When, as must oc- 
casionally happen, some individual of a tribe displays un- 
usual aptitude for making an article of general use — a 
weapon, for instance — which was before made by each man 
for himself, there arises a tendency towards the differentia- 
tion of that individual into a maker of such weapon. His 
companions — warriors and hunters all of them, — severally 
feel the importance of having the best weapons that can 
bo made ; and are therefore certain to offer strong induce- 
ments to this skilled individual to make weapons for them, 
He, on the other hand, having not only an unusual faculty, 
but an unusual liking, for making such weapons (the talent 
and the desire for any occupation being commonly associa- 
ted), is predisposed to fulfil these commissions on the offer 



SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATIONS. 51 

of an adequate reward : especially as his love of distinction 
is also gratified. This first specialization of function, once 
commenced, tends ever to become more decided. On the 
side of the weapon-maker continued practice gives increased 
skill — increased superiority to his products : on the side of 
Ms clients, cessation of practice entails decreased skill. 
Thus the influences that determine this division of labour 
grow stronger in both ways ; and the incipient heterogene- 
ity is, on the average of cases, likely to become permanent 
for that generation, if no longer. 

Observe now, however, that this process not only dif- 
ferentiates the social mass into two parts, the one monopo- 
lizing, or almost monopolizing, the performance of a certain 
function, and the other having lost the habit, and in some 
measure the power, of performing that function ; but it 
tends to imitate other differentiations. The advance we 
have described implies the introduction of barter, — the 
maker of weapons has, on each occasion, to be paid in such 
other articles as he agrees to take in exchange. But he 
will not habitually take in exchange one kind of article, 
but many kinds. He does not want mats only, or skins, or 
fishing gear, but he wants all these ; and on each occasion 
will bargain for the particular things he most needs. What 
follows ? If among the members of the tribe there exist 
any slight differences of skill in the manufacture of these 
various things, as there are almost sure to do, the weapon- 
maker will take from each one the thing which that one ex- 
cels in making : he will exchange for mats with him whose 
mats are superior, and will bargain for the fishing gear of 
whoever has the best. But he who has bartered away his 
mats or his fishing gear, must make other mats or fishing 
gear for himself; and in so doing must, in some degree, 
further develop his aptitude. Thus it results that the 
small specialities of faculty possessed by various members 
of the tribe, will tend to grow more decided. If such 



52 peogeess: rrs law and cause. 

transactions are from time repeated, these sjDecializations 
may become appreciable. And whether or not there en- 
sue distinct differentiations of other individuals into makers 
of particular articles, it is clear that incipient differentiations 
take place throughout the tribe : the one original c&usu 
produces not only the first dual effect, but a number of 
secondary dual effects, like in kind, but minor in degree. 
This process, of which traces may be seen among groups 
of schoolboys, cannot well produce any lasting effects in 
an unsettled tribe ; but where there grows up a fixed and 
multiplying community, these differentiations become per- 
manent, and increase with each generation. A larger popu- 
lation, involving a greater demand for every commodity, 
intensifies the functional activity of each specialized person 
or class ; and this renders the specialization more definite 
where it already exists, and establishes it where it is nascent. 
By increasing the pressure on the means of subsistence, 
a larger population again augments these results ; seeing 
that each person is forced more and more to confine him- 
self to that which he can do best, and by which he can gain 
most. This industrial progress, by aiding future produc- 
tion, opens the way for a further growth of population, 
which reacts as before : in all which the multiplication of 
effects is manifest. Presently, under these same stimuli, 
new occupations arise. Competing workers, ever aiming 
to produce improved articles, occasionally discover better 
processes or raw materials. In weapons and cutting tools, 
the substitution of bronze for stone entails upon him who 
first makes it a great increase of demand — so great an in- 
crease that he presently finds all his time occupied in making 
the bronze for the articles he sells, and is obliged to depute 
the fashioning of these to others : and, eventually, the 
making of bronze, thus gradually differentiated from a pre- 
existing occupation, becomes an occupation by itself. 

But now mark the ramified changes which follow this 



MULTIPLICATION OF INDUSTRIAL EFFECTS. 53 

change. Bronze soon replaces stone, not only in the arti- 
cles it was first used for, but in many others — in arms, tools, 
and utensils of various kinds ; and so affects the manufac- 
ture of these things. Further, it affects the processes 
which these utensils subserve, and the resulting products — 
modifies buildings, carvings, dress, personal decorations 
STet again, it sets going sundry manufactures which were 
before impossible, from lack of a material fit for the requi- 
site tools. And all these changes react on the people — in- 
crease their manipulative skill, their intelligence, their com- 
fort, — refine their habits and tastes. Thus the evolution of 
a homogeneous society into a heterogeneous one, is clearly 
consequent on the general principle, that many effects are 
produced by one cause. 

Our limits will not allow us to follow out this process in 
its higher complications : else might we show how the lo- 
calization of special industries in special parts of a king- 
dom, as well as the minute subdivision of labour in the 
making of each commodity, are similarly determined. Or, 
turning to a somewhat different order of illustrations, we 
might dwell on the multitudinous changes — material, intel- 
lectual, moral, — caused by printing ; or the further exten- 
sive series of changes wrought by gunpowder. But leaving 
the intermediate phases of social development, let us take 
a few illustrations from its most recent and its passing pha- 
ses. To trace the effects of steam-power, in its manifold 
applications to mining, navigation, and manufactures of all 
kinds, would carry us into unmanageable detail. Let us 
confine ourselves to the latest embodiment of steam-power 
—the locomotive engine. 

This, as the proximate cause of our railway system, has 
changed the face of the country, the course of trade, and 
the habits of the people. Consider, first, the complicated 
gets of changes that precede the making of every railway — 
the provisional arrangements, the meetings, the registra« 



54 PEOGEESS: ITS LAW ASTD CAUSE. 

tion, the trial section, the parliamentary survey, the litho 
graphed plans, the books of reference, the local deposits and 
notices, the application to Parliament, the passing Standing- 
Orders Committee, the first, second, and third readings: 
each of which brief heads indicates a multiplicity of transac- 
tions, and the development of sundry occupations — as those 
of engineers, surveyors, lithographers, parliamentary agents, 
share-brokers ; and the creation of sundry others — as those 
of traffic-takers, reference-takers. Consider, next, the yet 
more marked changes implied in railway construction — the 
cuttings, embankings, tunnellings, diversions of roads ; the 
building of bridges and stations ; the laying down of bal- 
last, sleepers, and rails; the making of engines, tenders, 
carriages and waggons : which processes, acting upon nu- 
merous trades, increase the importation of timber, the 
quarrying of stone, the manufacture of iron, the mining of 
coal, the burning of bricks : institute a variety of special 
manufactures weekly advertised in the Hallway Times y 
and, finally, open the way to sundry new occupations, as 
those of drivers, stokers, cleaners, plate-layers, &c, &c. 
And then consider the changes, more numerous and in- 
volved still, which railways in action produce on the com- 
munity at large. The organization of every business is 
more or less modified : ease of communication makes it bet- 
ter to do directly what was before done by proxy ; agencies 
are established where previously they would not have paid ; 
goods are obtained from remote wholesale houses instead 
of near retail ones ; and commodities are used which dis- 
tance once rendered inaccessible. Again, the rapidity and 
small cost of carriage tend to specialize more than ever the 
industries of different districts — to confine each manufac- 
ture to the parts in which, from local advantages, it can be 
best carried on. Further, the diminished cost of carriage, 
facilitating distribution, equalizes prices, and also, on the 
average, lowers prices : thus bringing divers articles within 



EFFEOTS OF THE LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE. 55 

the means of those before unable to buy them, and so in- 
creasing their comforts and improving their habits. At the 
same time the practice of travelling is immensely extended. 
Classes who never before thought of it, take annual trips 
to the sea ; visit their distant relations ; make tours ; and 
so we are benefited in body, feelings, and intellect. More- 
over, the more prompt transmission of letters and of news 
produces further changes — makes the pulse of the nation 
faster. Yet more, there arises a wide dissemination of cheap 
literature through railway book-stalls, and of advertise- 
ments in railway carriages : both of them aiding ulterior 
progress. 

And all the innumerable changes here briefly indicated 
are consequent on the invention of the locomotive engine 
The social organism has been rendered more heterogeneous 
in virtue of the many new occupations introduced, and the 
many old ones further specialized ; prices in every place 
have been altered ; each trader has, more or less, modified 
his way of doing business ; and almost every person has 
been affected in his actions, thoughts, emotions. 

Illustrations to the same effect might be indefinitely ac- 
cumulated. That every influence brought to bear upon so- 
ciety works multiplied effects ; and that increase of hetero- 
geneity is due to this multiplication of effects ; may be seen 
in the history of every trade, every custom, every belief. 
But it is needless to give additional evidence of this. The 
only further fact demanding notice, is, that we here see still 
more clearly than ever, the truth before pointed out, that 
in proportion as the area on which any force expends itself 
becomes heterogeneous, the results are in a yet higher de- 
gree multiplied in number and kind. While among the 
primitive tribes to whom it was first known, caoutchouc 
caused but a few changes, among ourselves the changes 
have been so many and varied that the history of them oo 



56 PEOGEESS : ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

cupies a volume.'* Upon the small, homogeneous commu 
nity inhabiting one of the Hebrides, the electric telegraph 
would produce, were it used, scarcely any results ; but in 
England the results it produces are multitudinous. The 
comparatively simple organization under which our ances- 
tors lived five centuries ago, could have undergone but few 
modifications from an event like the recent one at Canton ; 
but now the legislative decision respecting it sets up many 
hundreds of complex modifications, each of which will be 
the parent of numerous future ones. 

Space permitting, we could willingly have pursued the 
argument in relation to all the subtler results of civilization. 
As before, we showed that the law of Progress to which 
the organic and inorganic worlds conform, is also conformed 
to by Language, Sculpture, Music, &c. ; so might we here 
show that the cause which we have hitherto found to de- 
termine Progress holds in these cases also. We might 
demonstrate in detail how, in Science, an advance of one 
division presently advances other divisions — how Astron- 
omy has been immensely forwarded by discoveries in Op^ 
tics, while other optical discoveries have initiated Micro- 
scopic Anatomy, and greatly aided the growth of Physiol- 
ogy — how Chemistry has indirectly increased our knowl- 
edge of Electricity, Magnetism, Biology, Geology — how 
Electricity has reacted on Chemistry and Magnetism, de- 
veloped our views of Light and Heat, and disclosed sundry 
laws of nervous action. 

In Literature the same truth might be exhibited in the 
manifold effects of the primitive mystery-play, not only as 
originating the modern drama, but as affecting through it 
other kinds of poetry and fiction ; or in the still multiply- 
ing forms of periodical literature that have descended from 
the first newspaper, and which have severally acted and 

* " Personal Narrative of the Origin of the Caoutchouc, or India-Rub 
bcr Manufacture in England." By Thomas Hancock. 



VAST APPLICABILITY OF THE PRINCIPLE. 57 

reacted on other forms of literature and on each other. 
The influence which a new school of Painting — as that of 
the pre-Raffaelites — exercises upon other schools ; the hints 
which all kinds of pictorial art are deriving from Photo- 
graphy ; the complex results of new critical doctrines, as 
those of Mr. Ruskin, might severally he dwelt upon as 
displaying the like multiplication of effects. But it would 
needlessly tax the reader's patience to pursue, in their 
many ramifications, these various changes : here become 
so involved and subtle as to he followed with some diffi- 
culty. 

"Without further evidence, we venture to think our case 
is made out. The imperfections of statement which brevity 
has necessitated, do not, we believe, militate against the 
propositions laid down. The qualifications here and there 
demanded would not, if made, affect the inferences. 
Though in one instance, where sufficient evidence is not 
attainable, we have been unable to show that the law of 
Progress applies; yet there is high probability that the same 
generalization holds which holds throughout the rest of 
creation. Though, in tracing the genesis of Progress, we 
have frequently spoken of complex causes as if they were 
simple ones ; it still remains true that such causes are far 
less complex than their results. Detailed criticisms can- 
not affect our main position. Endless facts go to show 
that every kind of progress is from the homogeneous to 
the heterogeneous ; and that it is so because each change 
is followed by many changes. And it is significant that 
where the facts are most accessible and abundant, there 
are these truths most manifest. 

However, to avoid committing ourselves to more than 
is yet proved, we must be content with saying that such 
are the law and the cause of all progress that is known to 
us. Should the Nebular Hypothesis ever be established, 
then it will become manifest that the Universe at large, 



58 PKOGKESS : ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

like every organism, was once homogeneous ; that as a 
whole, and in every detail, it has unceasingly advanced 
towards greater heterogeneity ; and that its heterogeneity 
is still increasing. It will be seen that as in each event of 
to-day, so from the beginning, the decomposition of every 
expended force into several forces has been perpetually 
producing a higher complication ; that the increase of 
heterogeneity so brought about is still going on, and must 
continue to go on ; and that thus Progress is not an acci- 
dent, not a thing within human control, but a beneficent 
necessity. 

A few words must be added on the ontological bear- 
ings of our argument. Probably not a few will conclude 
that here is an attempted solution of the great questions 
with which Philosophy in all ages has perplexed itself 
Let none thus deceive themselves. Only such as know not 
the scope and the limits of Science can fall into so grave 
an error. The foregoing generalizations apply, not to the 
genesis of things in themselves, but to their genesis as 
manifested to the human consciousness. After all that has 
been said, the ultimate mystery remains just as it was. 
The explanation of that which is explicable, does but bring 
out into greater clearness the inexplicableness of that 
which remains behind. However we may succeed in re- 
ducing the equation to its lowest terms, we are not thereby 
enabled to determine the unknown quantity : on the con- 
trary, it only becomes more manifest that the unknown 
quantity can never be found. 

Little as it seems to do so, fearless inquiry tends con- 
tinually to give a firmer basis to all true Religion. The 
timid sectarian, alarmed at the progress of knowledge, 
obliged to abandon one by one the superstitions of his 
ancestors, and daily finding his cherished beliefs more and 
more shaken, secretly fears that all things may some day 



NECESSARY LIMITS OF INVESTIGATION. 59 

bo explained ; and has a corresponding dread of Science : 
thus evincing the profoundest of all infidelity — the fear lest 
the truth be bad. On the other hand, the sincere man of 
science, content to follow wherever the evidence leads him, 
becomes by each new inquiry more profoundly convinced 
that the Universe is an insoluble problem. Alike in the 
external and the internal worlds, he sees himself in the 
midst of perpetual changes, of which he can discover 
neither the beginning nor the end. If, tracing back the 
evolution of things, he allows himself to entertain the 
hypothesis that all matter once existed in a diffused form, 
he finds it utterly impossible to conceive how this came to 
be so ; and equally, if he speculates on the future, he can 
assign no limit to the grand succession of phenomena ever 
unfolding themselves before him. On the other hand, if 
he looks inward, he perceives that both terminations of 
the thread of consciousness are beyond his grasp : he can- 
not remember when or how consciousness commenced, 
and he cannot examine the consciousness that at any mo- 
ment exists; for only a state of consciousness that is 
already past can become the object of thought, and never 
one which is passing. 

When, again, he turns from the succession of phenom- 
ena, external or internal, to their essential nature, he is 
equally at fault. Though he may succeed in resolving all 
properties of objects into manifestations of force, he is not 
thereby enabled to realize what force is ; but finds, on the 
contrary, that the more he thinks about it, the more he is 
baffled. Similarly, though analysis of mental actions may 
finally bring him down to sensations as the original ma- 
terials out of which all thought is woven, he is none the 
forwarder ; for he cannot in the least comprehend sensa- 
tion — cannot even conceive how sensation is possible. In- 
ward and outward things he thus discovers to be alike 
inscrutable in their ultimate genesis and nature. He sees 



60 PROGRESS : ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 

that the Materialist and Spiritualist controversy is a mere 
war of words ; the disputants being equally absurd — each 
believing he understands that which it is impossible for 
any man to understand. In all directions his investigations 
eventually bring him face to face with the unknowable ; 
and he ever more clearly perceives it to be the unknowable. 
He learns at once the greatness and the littleness of human 
intellect — its power in dealing with all that comes within 
the range of experience ; its impotence in dealing with all 
that transcends experience. He feels, with a vividness 
which no others can, the utter incomprehensibleness of 
the simplest fact, considered in itself. He alone truly 
sees that absolute knowledge is impossible. He alone 
knows that under all things there lies an impenetrable 
mystery. 



II. 

MANNERS AND FASHION. 



WHOEVER has studied the physiognomy of political 
meetings, cannot fail to have remarked a connection 
between democratic opinions and peculiarities of costume. 
At a Chartist demonstration, a lecture on Socialism, or a 
soirSe of the Friends of Italy, there will be seen many 
among the audience, and a still larger ratio among the 
speakers, who get themselves up in a style more or less 
unusual. One gentleman on the platform divides his hair 
down the centre, instead of on one side ; another brushes 
it back off the forehead, in the fashion known as " bringing 
out the intellect ; '' a third has so long forsworn the scis- 
sors, that his locks sweep his shoulders. A considerable 
sprinkling of moustaches may be observed ; here and there 
an imperial ; and occasionally some courageous breaker of 
conventions exhibits a full-grown beard.* This noncon- 
formity in hair is countenanced by various nonconformities 
in dress, shown by others of the assemblage. Bare necks, 
shirt-collars a la Byron, waistcoats cut Quaker fashion, 
wonderfully shaggy great coats, numerous oddities in form 
and colour, destroy the monotony usual in crowds. Ever 
those exhibiting no conspicuous peculiarity, frequently in 

* This was written before moustaches and beards had become common. 



62 MANNERS AND FASHION. 

dicate by something in the pattern or make-up of theii 
clothes, that they pay small regard to what their tailors 
tell them about the prevailing taste. And when the 
gathering breaks up, the varieties of head gear displayed 
— the number of caps, and the abundance of felt hats 
— suffice to prove that were the world at large like-minded, 
the black cylinders which tyrannize over us would soon be 
deposed. 

The foreign correspondence of our daily press showa 
that this relationship between political discontent and the 
disregard of customs exists on the Continent also. Red 
republicanism has always been distinguished by its hirsute- 
ness. The authorities of Prussia, Austria, and Italy, alike 
recoguize certain forms of hat as indicative of disaffection, 
and fulminate against them accordingly. In some places 
the wearer of a blouse runs a risk of being classed among 
the suspects; and in others, he who would avoid the bureau 
of police, must beware how he goes out in any but the 
ordinary colours. Thus, democracy abroad, as at home, 
tends towards personal singularity. 

Nor is this association of characteristics peculiar to 
modern times, or to reformers of the State. It has always 
existed ; and it has been manifested as much in religious 
agitations as in political ones. Along with dissent from 
the chief established opinions and arrangements, there has 
ever been some dissent from the customary social practices. 
The Puritans, disapproving of the long curls of the Cava- 
liers, as of their principles, cut their own hair short, and so 
gained the name of " Roundheads." The marked religions 
nonconformity of the Quakers was accompanied by an 
equally-marked nonconformity of manners — in attire, in 
speech, in salutation. The early Moravians not only 
believed differently, but at the same time dressed dif- 
ferently, and lived differently, from their fellow Christians. 

That the association between political independence 



KELATION BETWEEN IDEAS AND COSTUMES. 63 

and independence of personal conduct, is not a phenome- 
non of to-day only, we may see alike in the appearance ot 
Franklin at the French court in plain clothes, and in the 
white hats worn by the last generation of radicals. Origin 
nality of nature is sure to show itself in more ways than 
one. The mention of George Fox's suit of leather, or 
Pestalozzi's school name, "Harry Oddity," will at once 
suggest the remembrance that men who have in great 
things diverged from the beaten track, have frequently 
done so in small things likewise. Minor illustrations of 
this truth may be gathered in almost every circle. We 
believe that whoever will number up his reforming and 
rationalist acquaintances, will find among them more than 
the usual proportion of those who in dress or behaviour 
exhibit some degree of what the world calls eccentricity. 

If it be a fact that men of revolutionary aims in politics 
or religion, are commonly revolutionists in custom also, 
it is not less a fact that those whose office it is to uphold 
established arrangements in State and Church, are also 
those who most adhere to the social forms and obser- 
vances bequeathed to us by past generations. Practices 
elsewhere extinct still linger about the headquarters of 
government. The monarch still gives assent to Acts of 
Parliament in the old French of the Normans ; and Nor- 
man French terms are still used in law. Wigs, such as 
those we see depicted in old portraits, may yet be found 
on the heads of judges and barristers. The Beefeaters 
at the Tower wear the costume of Henry Vllth's body- 
guard. The University dress of the present year varies 
but little from that worn soon after the Reformation. 
The claret-coloured coat, knee-breeches, lace shirt frills, 
ruffles, white silk stockings, and buckled shoes, which 
once formed the usual attire of a gentleman, still survive 
as the court-dress. And it need scarcely be said that at 
levees and drawing-rooms, the ceremonies are prescribed 



64 MANNERS AND FASHION. 

with an exactness, and enforced with a rigour, not else 
where to be found. 

Can we consider these two series of coincidences aa 
accidental and unmeaning ? Must we not rather conclude 
that some necessary relationship obtains between them ? 
Are there not such things as a constitutional conservatism, 
and a constitutional tendency to change ? Is there not a 
class which clings to the old in all things ; and another 
class so in love with progress as often to mistake novelty 
for improvement ? Do we not find some men ready to 
bow to established authority of whatever kind ; while 
others demand of every such authority its reason, and 
reject it if it fails to justify itself? And must not the 
minds thus contrasted tend to become respectively con- 
forcnist and nonconformist, not only in politics and religion, 
but in other things ? Submission, whether to a govern- 
ment, to the dogmas of ecclesiastics, or to that code of 
behaviour which society at large has set up, is essentially 
of the same nature ; and the sentiment which induces 
resistance to the despotism of rulers, civil or spiritual, like- 
wise induces resistance to the despotism of the world's 
opinion. Look at them fundamentally, and all enactments, 
alike of the legislature, the consistory, and the saloon — all 
regulations, formal or virtual, have a common character : 
they are all limitations of men's freedom. " Do this — 
Refrain from that," are the blank formulas into which they 
may all be written : and in each case the understanding is 
that obedience will bring approbation here and paradise 
hereafter ; while disobedience will entail imprisonment, or 
sending to Coventry, or eternal torments, as the case may 
be. And if restraints, however named, and through what- 
ever apparatus of means exercised, are one in their action 
upon men, it must happen that those who are patient under 
one kind of restraint, are likely to be patient under another; 
and conversely, that those impatient of restraint in general, 



OEIGIN OF LAW, RELIGION, AND MANNERS. 65 

will, on the average, tend to show their impatience in all 
directions. 

That Law, Religion, and. Manners are thus related — 
that their respective kinds of operation come under one 
generalization — that they have in certain contrasted charac- 
teristics of men a common support and a common danger 
—will, however, be most clearly seen on discovering that 
they have a common origin. Little as from present ap- 
pearances we should suppose it, we shall yet find that at 
first, the control of religion, the control of laws, and the 
control of manners, were all one control. However in- 
credible it may now seem, we believe it to be demonstrable 
that the rules of etiquette, the provisions of the statute- 
book, and the commands of the decalogue, have grown 
from the same root. If we go far enough back into the 
ages of primeval Fetishism, it becomes manifest that 
originally Deity, Chief, and Master of the ceremonies were 
identical. To make good these positions, and to show 
their bearing on what is to follow, it will be necessary 
here to traverse ground that is in part somewhat beaten, 
and at first sight irrelevant to our topic. We will pass 
over it as quickly as consists with the exigencies of the 
argument. 

That the earliest social aggregations were ruled solely 
by the will of the strong man, few dispute. That from the 
strong man proceeded not only Monarchy, but the concep- 
tion of a God, few admit : much as Carlyle and others have 
said in evidence of it. If, however, those who are unable 
to believe this, will lay aside the ideas of God and man in 
which they have been educated, and study the aboriginal 
deas of them, they will at least see some probability in 
the hypothesis. Let them remember that before experi- 
ence had yet taught men to distinguish between the possi- 
ble and the impossible ; and while they were ready on the 



66 MANNEES AND FASHION. 

slightest suggestion to ascribe unknown powers to any ob 
ject and make a fetish of it ; their conceptions of human- 
ity and its capacities were necessarily vague, and without 
specific limits. The man who by unusual strength, or cun- 
ning, achieved something that others had failed to achieve, 
or something which they did not understand, was considered 
by them as differing from themselves ; and, as we see in the 
belief of some Polynesians that only their chiefs have souls, 
or in that of the ancient Peruvians that their nobles were di- 
vine by birth, the ascribed difference was apt to be not one of 
degree only, but one of kind. 

Let them remember next, how gross were the notions 
of God, or rather of gods, prevalent during the same era 
and afterwards — how concretely gods were conceived as 
men of specific aspects dressed in specific ways — how their 
names were literally " the strong," " the destroyer," " the 
powerful one," — how, according to the Scandinavian my- 
thology, the "sacred duty of blood-revenge" was acted 
on by the gods themselves, — and how they were not only 
human in their vindictiveness, their cruelty, and their 
quarrels with each other, but were supposed to have amours 
on earth, and to consume the viands placed on their altars. 
Add to which, that in various mythologies, Greek, Scandi- 
navian, and others, the oldest beings are giants ; that ac- 
cording to a traditional genealogy the gods, demi-gods, 
and in some cases men, are descended from these after the 
human fashion ; and that while in the East we hear of sons of 
God who saw the daughters of men that they were fair, 
the Teutonic myths tell of unions between the sons of men 
and the daughters of the gods. 

Let them remember, too, that at first the idea of death 
differed widely from that which we have ; that there are 
still tribes who, on the decease of one of their number, at- 
tempt to make the corpse stand, and put food into his mouth ; 
that the Peruvians had feasts at which the mummies of their 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 67 

dead Incas presided, when, as Prescott says, they paid atten- 
tion " to these insensible remains as if they were instinct with 
life ; " that among the Fejees it is believed that every enemy 
has to be killed twice ; that the Eastern Pagans give exten- 
sion and figure to the soul, and attribute to it all the samesub» 
stances, both solid andliquid, of which our bodies are compos- 
ed ; and that it is the custom among most barbarous races to 
bury food, weapons, and trinkets along with the dead body, 
under the manifest belief that it will presently need them. 

Lastly, let them remember that the other world, as ori- 
ginally conceived, is simply some distant part of this world 
— some Elysian fields, some happy hunting-ground, accessi- 
ble even to the living, and to which, after death, men 
travel in anticipation of a life analogous in general charac- 
ter to that which they led before. Then, co-ordinating these 
general facts — the ascription of unknown powers to chiefs 
and medicine men; the belief in deities having human 
forms, passions, and behaviour ; the imperfect comprehen- 
sion of death as distinguished from life ; and the proximity 
of the future abode to the present, both in position and 
character — let them reflect whether they do not almost un- 
avoidably suggest the conclusion that the aboriginal god 
is the dead chief : the chief not dead in our sense, but 
gone away carrying with him food and weapons to some 
rumoured region of plenty, some promised land, whither he 
had long intended to lead his followers, and whence he will 
presently return to fetch them. 

This hypothesis once entertained, is seen to harmonize 
with all primitive ideas and practices. The sons of the dei- 
fied chief reigning after him, it necessarily happens that all 
eai'ly kings are held descendants of the gods ; and the fact 
that alike in Assyria, Egypt, among the Jews, Phoenicians, 
and ancient Britons, kings' names were formed out of the 
names of the gods, is fully explained. The genesis of Poly« 
theism out of Fetishism, by the successive migrations of 



6S MANNEKS AND FASHION. 

the race of god-kings to the other world — a genesis illus- 
trated in the Greek mythology, alike by the precise gene- 
alogy of the deities, and by the specifically asserted apothe- 
osis of the later ones — tends further to bear it out. It ex- 
plains the fact that in the old creeds, as in the still extant 
creed of the Otaheitans, every family has its guardian 
spirit, who is supposed to be one of their departed rela- 
tives ; and that they sacrifice to these as minor gods — a 
practice still pursued by the Chinese and even by the Rus- 
sians. It is perfectly congruous with the Grecian myths 
concerning the wars of the Gods with the Titans and their 
final usurpation ; and it similarly agrees with the fact that 
among the Teutonic gods proper was one Freir who came 
among them by adoption, "but was bora among the Vanes, a 
somewhat mysterious other dynasty of gods, who had been 
conquered and superseded by the stronger and more warlike 
Odin dynasty." It harmonizes, too, with the belief that there 
are different gods to different territories and nations, as there 
were different chiefs ; that these gods contend for supremacy 
as chiefs do; and it gives meaning to the boast of neighbour- 
ing tribes — "Our god is greater than your god." It is con- 
firmed by the notion universally current in early times, that 
the gods come from this other abode, in which they common- 
ly live, and appear among men — speak to them, help them, 
punish them. And remembering this, it becomes manifest 
that the prayers put up by primitive peoples to their gods for 
aid in battle, are meant literally — that their gods are expect- 
ed to come back from the other kingdom they are reigning 
over, and once more fight the old enemies they had before 
warred against so implacably ; and it needs but to name the 
Iliad, to remind every one how thoroughly they believed the 
expectation fulfilled. 

All government, then, being originally that of the 
strong man who has become a fetish by some manifestation oi 
superiority, there arises, at his death — his supposed depar- 



SEPARATION OF CIVIL FROM RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY. 69 

ture on a long projected expedition, in which he is accom- 
panied by his slaves and concubines sacrificed at his tomb 
—there arises, then, the incipient division of religious from 
political control, of civil rule from spiritual. His son be- 
comes deputed chief during his absence ; his authority is 
cited as that by which his son acts; his vengeance is invok- 
ed on all who disobey his son ; and his commands, as pre- 
viously known or as asserted by his son, become the germ 
of a moral code : a fact we shall the more clearly perceive 
if we remember, that early moral codes inculcate mainly 
the virtues of the warrior, and the duty of exterminating 
some neighbouring tribe whose existence is an offence to 
the deity. 

From this point onwards, these two kinds of authority, 
at first complicated together as those of principal and agent, 
become slowly more and more distinct. As experience ac- 
cumulates, and ideas of causation grow more precise, kings 
lose their supernatural attributes ; and, instead of God- 
king, become God-descended king, God-appointed king, 
the Lord's anointed, the vicegerent of heaven, ruler reign- 
ing by Divine right. The old theory, however, long clings 
to men in feeling, after it has disappeared in name ; and 
" such divinity doth hedge a king," that even now, many, 
on first seing one, feel a secret surprise at finding him an 
ordinary sample of humanity. The sacredness attaching 
to royalty attaches afterwards to its appended institutions 
— to legislatures, to laws. Legal and illegal are synony- 
mous with right and wrong ; the authority of Parliament 
is held unlimited ; and a lingering faith in governmental 
power continually generates unfounded hopes from its en- 
actments. Political scepticism, however, having destroyed 
the divine prestige of royalty, goes on ever increasing, 
and promises ultimately to reduce the State to a purely 
secular institution, whose regulations are limited in their 
sphere, and have no other authority than the general will. 



70 MANNERS AND FASHION. 

Meanwhile, the religious control has been little by little 
separating itself from the civil, both in its essence and in 
its forms. While from the God-king of the savage have 
arisen in one direction, secular rulers who, age by age, 
have been losing the sacred attributes men ascribed to 
them ; there has arisen in another direction, the conception 
cf a deity, who, at first human in all things, has been grad< 
aally losing human materiality, human form, human passions, 
human modes of action : until now, anthropomorphism has 
become a reproach. 

Along with this wide divergence in men's ideas of the 
divine and civil ruler has been taking place a corresponding 
divergence in the codes of conduct respectively proceeding 
from them. While the king was a deputy-god — a governor 
such as the Jews looked for in the Messiah — -a governor 
considered, as the Czar still is, " our God upon Earth," — 
it, of course, followed that his commands were the supreme 
rules. But as men ceased to believe in his supernatural 
origin and nature, his commands ceased to be the highest ; 
and there arose a distinction between the regulations made 
by him, and the regulations . handed down from the old 
god-kings, who were rendered ever more sacred by time 
and the accumulation of myths. Hence came respectively, 
Law and Morality : the one growing ever more concrete, 
the other more abstract ; the authority of the one ever on 
the decrease, that of the other ever on the increase ; origi- 
nally the same, but now placed daily in more marked an- 
tagonism. 

Simultaneously there has been going on a separation of 
the institutions administering these two codes of conduct. 
While they were yet one, of course Church and State were 
one ; the king was arch-priest, not nominally, but really- 
alike the giver of new commands and the chief interpreter 
of the old commands ; and the deputy-priests coming out 
of his family were thus simply expounders of the dictates 



SEPARATION OF CHUECH AND STATE. 71 

of their ancestry : at first as recollected, and afterwards as 
ascertained by professed interviews with them. This union 
— which still existed practically during the middle ages, 
when the authority of kings was mixed up with the author- 
ity of the pope, when there were bishop-rulers having all 
the powers of feudal lords, and when priests punished by 
penances — has been, step by step, becoming less close. 
Though monarchs are still " defenders of the faith," 
and ecclesiastical chiefs, they are but nominally such. 
Though bishops still have civil power, it is not what they 
once had. Protestantism shook loose the bonds of union ; 
Dissent has long been busy in organizing a mechanism for 
the exercise of religious control, wholly independent of 
law ; in America, a separate organization for that purpose 
already exists ; and if anything is to be hoped from the 
An ti- State-Church Association — or, as it has been newly 
named, " The Society for the Liberation of Religion from 
State Patronage and Control " — we shall presently have a 
separate organization here also. 

Thus alike in authority, in essence, and in form, politi- 
cal and spiritual rule have been ever more widely diverging 
from the same root. That increasing division of labour 
which marks the progress of society in other things, marks 
it also in this separation of government into civil and reli- 
gious ; and if we observe how the morality which forms the 
substance of religions in general, is beginning to be puri- 
fied from the associated creeds, we may anticipate that this 
division will be ultimately carried much further. 

Passing now to the third species of control — that of 
Manners— we shall find that this, too, while it had a com- 
mon genesis with the others, has gradually come to have a 
distinct sphere and a special embodiment. Among early 
aggregations of men before yet social observances existed, 
the sole forms of courtesy known were the signs of sub- 
mission to the strong man ; as the sole law was his will, 
5 



72 MANNEBS AND FASHION. 

and the sole religion the awe of his supposed supernatural- 
ness. Originally, ceremonies were modes of behaviour to 
the god-king. Our commonest titles have been derived 
from his names. And all salutations were primarily wor- 
ship paid to him. Let us trace out these truths in detail, 
beginning with titles. 

The fact already noticed, that the names of early kings 
among divers races are formed by the addition of certain 
syllables to the names of their gods — which certain sylla- 
bles, like our Mac and Fitz, probably mean " son of," or 
"descended from" — at once gives meaning to the term 
Father as a divine title. And when we read, in Selden, 
that " the composition out of these names of Deities was 
not only proper to Kings : their Grandes and more honora- 
ble Subjects" (no doubt members of the royal race) "had 
sometimes the like ; " we see how the term Father, prop- 
erly used by these also, and by their multiplying descend- 
ants, came to be a title used by the people in general. And 
it is significant as bearing on this point, that among the 
most barbarous nation in Europe, where belief in the di- 
vine nature of the ruler still lingers, Father in this higher 
sense is still a regal distinction. When, again, we remem- 
ber how the divinity at first ascribed to kings was not a 
complimentary fiction but a supposed fact ; and how, fur- 
ther, under the Fetish philosophy the celestial bodies are 
believed to be personages who once lived among men ; we 
see that the appellations of oriental rulers, " Brother to the 
Sun," &c, were probably once expressive of a genuine be- 
lief; and have simply, like many other things, continued in 
use after all meaning has gone out of them. We may 
infer, too, that the titles God, Lord, Divinity, were given 
to primitive rulers literally — that the nostra divinitas ap- 
plied to the Roman emperors, and the various sacred des 
ignations that have been borne by monarchs, down to the 
Btill extant phrase, " Our Lord the King," are the dead and 



DEKIVATION OF HONOEAET TITLES. 73 

dying forms of what were once living facts. From these 
names, God, Father, Lord, Divinity, originally belonging 
to the God-king, and afterwards to God and the king, the 
derivation of our commonest titles of respect is clearly 
traceable. 

There is reason to think that these titles were originally 
proper names. Not only do we see among the Egyptians, 
There Pharaoh was synonymous with king, and among the 
Romans, where to be Caesar, meant to be Emperor, that 
the proper names of the greatest men were transferred to 
their successors, and so became class names ; but in the 
Scandinavian mythology we may trace a human title of 
honour up to the proper name of a divine personage. In 
Anglo-Saxon bealdor, or baldor, means Lord / and Balder 
is the name of the favourite of Odin's sons — the gods who 
with him constitute the Teutonic Pantheon. How these 
names of honour became general is easily understood. 
The relatives of the primitive kings — the grandees de- 
scribed by Selden as having names formed on those of the 
gods, and shown by this to be members of the divine race 
— necessarily shared in the epithets, such as Lord, descrip- 
tive of superhuman relationships and nature. Their ever- 
multiplying offspring inheriting these, gradually rendered 
them comparatively common. And then they came to be 
applied to every man of power : partly from the fact that, 
in these early days when men conceived divinity simply as 
a stronger kind of humanity, great persons could be called 
by divine epithets with but little exaggeration ; partly from 
the fact that the unusually potent were apt to be consid- 
ered as unrecognized or illegitimate descendants of " the 
strong, the destroyer, the powerful one ; " and partly, also, 
from compliment and the desire to propitiate. 

Progressively as supei'stition diminished, this last be- 
came the sole cause. And if we remember that it is the 
nature of compliment, as we daily hear it, to attribute 



74: MANNERS AND FASHION. 

more than is due — that in the constantly widening applica- 
tion of " esquire," in the perpetual repetition of " your 
honour" by the fawning Irishman, and in the use of the 
name " gentleman" to any coalheaver or dustman by the 
lower classes of London, we have current examples of the 
depreciation of titles consequent on compliment — and that 
in barbarous times, when the wish to propitiate was stronger 
than now, this effect must have been greater ; we shall see 
that there naturally arose an extensive misuse of all early 
distinctions. Hence the facts, that the Jews called Herod 
a god ; that Father, in its higher sense, was a term used 
among them by servants to masters ; that Lord was appli- 
cable to any person of worth and power. Hence, too, the 
fact that, in the later periods of the Roman Empire, every 
man saluted his neighbour as Dominus and Hex. 

But it is in the titles of the middle ages, and in the 
growth of our modern ones out of them, that the process 
is most clearly seen. LTerr, Don, Signior, Seigneur, Sen- 
nor, were all originally names of rulers — of feudal lords. 
By the complimentary use of these names to all who could, 
on any pretence, be supposed to merit them, and by suc- 
cessive degradations of them from each step in the descent 
to a still lower one, they have come to be common forms 
of address. At first the phrase in which a serf acosted his 
despotic chief, mein herr is now familiarly applied in Ger- 
many to ordinary people. The Spanish title Don, once 
proper to noblemen and gentlemen only, is now accorded 
to all classes. So, too, is it with Signior in Italy. Seigneur, 
and Monseigneur, by contraction in Sieur and Monsieur^ 
have produced the term of respect claimed by every 
Frenchman. And whether Sire be or be not a like con- 
traction of Signior, it is clear that, as it was borne by sun- 
dry of the ancient feudal lords of France, who, as Selden 
Bays, " affected rather to bee stiled by the name of Stre 
than Baron, as Le Sire de Montmorencie, Le Sire de 



DEPRECIATION OF HONORARY TITLES. 75 

Beauieu, and the like," and as it has been commonly used 
to monarchs, our word Sir, which is derived from it, ori- 
ginally meant lord or king. Thus, too, is it with feminine 
titles. Lady, which, according to Home Tooke, means ea> 
alted, and was at first given only to the few, is now given 
to all women of education. Dame, once an honourable 
name to which, in old books, we find the epithets of " high- 
born " and " stately " aflixed, has now, by repeated widen- 
ings of its application, become relatively a term of contempt. 
And if we trace the compound of this, ma Dame, through 
its contractions — Madam, ma'' am, mam, mum, we find that 
the " Yes'm " of Sally to her mistress is originally equiva- 
lent to "Yes, my exalted," or "Yes, your highness." 
Throughout, therefore, the genesis of words of honour has 
been the same. Just as with the Jews and with the Ro- 
mans, has it been with the modern Europeans. Tracing 
these everyday names to their primitive significations of 
lord and king, and remembering that in aboriginal societies 
these were applied only to the gods and their descendants, 
we arrive at the conclusion that our familiar Sir and Mon- 
sieur are, in their primary and expanded meanings, terms 
of adoration. 

Further to illustrate this gradual depreciation of titles, 
and to confirm the inference drawn, it may be well to no- 
tice in passing, that the oldest of them have, as might be 
expected, been depreciated to the greatest extent. Thus, 
Master — a word proved by its derivation and by the simi- 
larity of the connate words in other languages (Fr., maitre 
for master/ Russ., master/ Dan., meester / Ger., meister) 
to have been one of the earliest in use for expressing 
lordship — has now become applicable to children only, 
and under the modification of " Mister," to persons next 
above the labourer. Again, knighthood, the oldest kind 
of dignity, is also the lowest ; and Knight Bachelor, which 
is the lowest order of knighthood, is more ancient than 



16 MANNERS AND FASHION. 

any other of the orders. Similarly, too, with the peerage 
Baron is alike the earliest and least elevated of its divi? 
sions. This continual degradation of all names of honor has, 
from time to time, made it requisite to introduce new ones 
having that distinguishing effect which the originals had 
lost by generality of use; just as our habit of misapplying 
superlatives has, by gradually destroying their force, entail- 
ed the need for fresh ones. And if, within the last thousand 
years, this process has produced effects thus marked, we 
may readily conceive how, during previous thousands, the 
titles of gods and demi-gods came to be used to all persons 
exercising power ; as they have since come to be used to 
persons of respectability. 

If from names of honour we turn to phrases of honour, 
we find similar facts. The Oriental styles of address, ap- 
plied to ordinary people — " I am your slave," " All I have is 
yours," "I am your sacrifice " — attribute to the individual 
spoken to the same greatness that Monsieur and My Lord 
do : they ascribe to him the character of an all-powerful 
ruler, so immeasurably superior to the speaker as to be his 
owner. So, likewise, with the Polish expressions of respect 
— "I throw myself under your feet," "I kiss your feet." 
In our now meaningless subscription to a formal letter— 
" Your most obedient servant," — the same thing is visible. 
Nay, even in the familiar signature " Yours faithfully," the 
" yours," if interpreted as originally meant, is the expres- 
sion of a slave to his master. 

All these dead forms were once living embodiments of 
fact — were primarily the genuine indications of that submis- 
sion to authority which they verbally assert ; were after- 
wards naturally used by the weak and cowardly to pro- 
pitiate those above them ; gradually grew to be considered 
the due of such ; and, by a continually wider misuse, have 
lost their meanings, as Sir and Master have done. That, 
tike titles, they were in the beginning used only to the 



ORIGIN OF PHKASES OF HONOUR. 77 

God-king, is indicated by the fact that, like titles, they were 
subsequently used in common to God and the king. Re- 
ligious worship has ever largely consisted of professions of 
obedience, of being God's servants, of belonging to him to 
do what he will with. Like titles, therefore, these common 
phrases of honour had a devotional origin. 

Perhaps, however, it is in the use of the word you as a 
singular pronoun that the popularizing of what were once 
supreme distinctions is most markedly illustrated. Thie 
speaking of a single individual in the plural, was origi 
nally an honour given only to the highest — was the recipro- 
cal of the imperial " we " assumed by such. Yet now, by 
being applied to successively lower and lower classes, it 
has become all but universal. Only by one sect of Chris- 
tians, and in a few secluded districts, is the primitive tJwu 
still used. And the yoit, in becoming common to all ranks 
has simultaneously lost every vestige of the honour once 
attaching to it. 

But the genesis of Manners out of forms of allegianc< 
and worship, is above all shown in men's modes of salutation. 
Note first the significance of the word. Among the Romans, 
the salutatio was a daily homage paid by clients and infe- 
riors to superiors. This was alike the case with civilians 
and in the army. The very derivation of our word, there- 
fore, is suggestive of submission. Passing to particular 
forms of obeisance (mark the word again), let us begin with 
the Eastern one of baring the feet. This was, primarily, a 
mark of reverence, alike to a god and a king. The act of 
Moses before the burning bush, and the practice of Mahom- 
etans, who are sworn on the Koran with their shoes off, ex- 
emplify the one employment of it ; the custom of the Per- 
sians, who remove their shoes on entering the presence of 
their monarch, exemplifies the other. As usual, however, 
this homage, paid next to inferior rulers, has descended 
from grade to grade. In India, it is a common mark of 



78 MANNERS AND FASHION 

respect ; a polite man in Turkey always leaves his shoes at 
the door, while the lower orders of Turks never enter the 
presence of their superiors but in their stockings ; and in 
Japan, this baring of the feet is an ordinary salutation of 
man to man. 

Take another case. Selden, describing the ceremonies 
of the Romans, says : — " For whereas it was usual either to 
kiss the Images of their Gods, or adoring them, to stand 
somewhat off before them, solemnly moving the right hand 
to the lips, and then, casting it as if they had cast kisses, to 
turne the body on the same hand (which was the right forme 
of Adoration), it grew also by custom, first that the emperors, 
being next to Deities, and by some accounted as Deities, 
had the like done to them in acknowledgment of their 
Greatness." If, now, we call to mind the awkward salute 
of a village school-boy, made by putting his open hand up 
to his face and describing a semicircle with his forearm ; 
and if we remember that the salute thus used as a form of 
reverence in country districts, is most likely a remnant of 
the feudal times; we shall see reason for thinking that our 
common wave of the hand to a friend across the street, re- 
presents what was primarily a devotional act. 

Similarly have originated all forms of respect depend- 
ing upon inclinations of the body. Entire prostration is 
the aboriginal sign of submission. The passage of Scrip- 
ture, " Thou hast put all under his feet," and that other one, 
so suggestive in its anthropomorphism, " The Lord said 
unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine 
enemies thy footstool," imply, what the Assyrian sculptures 
fully bear out, that it was the practice of the ancient god- 
kings of the East to trample upon the conquered. And 
when we bear in mind that there are existing savages 
who signify submission by placing the neck under the foot 
of the person submitted to, it becomes obvious that aE 
prostration, especially when accompanied by kissing the 



HOW FOKMS OF SALUTATION HAVE ORIGINATED. 79 

r oot, expressed a willingness to be trodden upon — was an at- 
tempt to mitigate wrath by saying, in signs, " Tread on me 
if you will." Remembering, further, that kissing the foot, 
as of the Pope and of a saint's statue, still continues m 
Europe to be a mark of extreme reverence ; that prostra 
tion to feudal lords was once general ; and that its dis 
appearance must have taken place, not abruptly, but by 
gradual modification into something else ; we have ground 
for deriving from these deepest of humiliations all inclina- 
tions of respect ; especially as the transition is traceable. 
The reverence of a Russian serf, who bends his head to 
the ground, and the salaam of the Hindoo, are abridged 
prostrations ; a bow is a short salaam ; a nod is a short 
bow. 

Should any hesitate to admit this conclusion, then per- 
haps, on being reminded that the lowest of these obeisances 
are common where the submission is most abject; that 
among ourselves the profundity of the bow marks the 
amount of respect ; and lastly, that the bow is even now 
used devotionally in our churches — by Catholics to their 
altars, and by Protestants at the name of Christ — they Will 
see sufficient evidence for thinking that this salutation also 
was originally worship. 

The same may be said, too, of the curtsy, or courtesy, 
as it is otherwise written. Its derivation from courtoisie, 
courteousness, that is, behaviour like that at court, at once 
shows that it was primarily the reverence paid to a mon- 
arch. And if we call to mind that falling upon the knees, 
or upon one knee, has been a common obeisance of subjects 
to rulers ; that in ancient manuscripts and tapestries, ser- 
vants are depicted as assuming this attitude while offering 
the dishes to their masters at table ; and that this same at- 
titude is assumed towards our own queen at every presen- 
tation; we may infer, what the character of the curtsy 
itself suggests, that it is an abridged act of kneeling. As 



SO MANNERS ANT FASHION. 

the word has been contracted from courtoisie into curtsy , 
so the motion has been contracted from a placing of the 
knee on the floor, to a lowering of the knee towards the 
floor. Moreover, when we compare the curtsy of a lady 
with the awkward one a peasant girl makes, which, if con- 
tinued, would bring her down on both knees, we may 
see in this last a remnant of that greater reverence re- 
quired of serfs. And when, from considering that simple 
kneeling of the West, still represented by the curtsy, we 
pass Eastward, and note the attitude of the Mahomedan 
worshipper, who not only kneels but bows his head to the 
ground, we may infer that the curtsy also, is an evanescent 
form of the aboriginal prostration. 

In further evidence of this it may be remarked, that 
there has but recently disappeared from the salutations of 
men, an action having the same proximate derivation with 
the curtsy. That backward sweep of the foot with which 
the conventional stage-sailor accompanies his bow — a move- 
ment which prevailed generally in past generations, when 
" a bow and a scrape " went together, and which, within 
the memory of living persons, was made by boys to their 
schoolmaster with the effect of wearing a hole in the floor 
— is pretty clearly a preliminary to going on one knee. A 
motion so ungainly could never have been intentionally in- 
troduced ; even if the artificial introduction of obeisances 
were possible. Hence we must regard it as the remnant of 
something antecedent : and that this something antecedent 
was humiliating may be inferred from the phrase, " scraping 
an acquaintance ; " which, being used to denote the gaining 
of favour by obsequiousness, implies that the scrape was 
considered a mark of servility — that is, of serf-\lity. 

Consider, again, the uncovering of the head. Almost 
everywhere this has been a sign of reverence, alike in tem- 
ples and before potentates ; and it yet preserves among us 
some of its original meaning. Whether it rains, hails, 01 



ORIGIN OF CEREMONIAL ATTITUDES. 81 

shines, you must keep your head bare while speaking to the 
monarch ; and on no plea may you remain covered in a 
place of worship. As usual, however, this ceremony, at 
first a submission to gods and kings, has become in process 
of time a common civility. Once an acknowledgment of 
another's unlimited supremacy, the removal of the hat ia 
now a salute accorded to very ordinary persons, and that 
uncovering, originally reserved for entrance into " the house 
of God," good manners now dictates on entrance into the 
house of a common labourer. 

Standing, too, as a mark of respect, has undergone like 
extensions in its application. Shown, by the practice in 
our churches, to be intermediate between the humiliation 
signified by kneeling and the self-respect which sitting im- 
plies, and used at courts as a form of homage when more active 
demonstrations of it have been made, this posture is now em- 
ployed in daily life to show consideration ; as seen alike in 
the attitude of a servant before a master, and in that rising 
which politeness prescribes on the entrance of a visitor. 

Many other threads of evidence might have been woven 
into our argument. As, for example, the significant fact, 
that if we trace back our still existing law of primogeni- 
ture — if we consider it as displayed by Scottish clans, in 
which not only ownership but government devolved from 
the beginning on the eldest son of the eldest — if we look 
further back, and observe that the old titles of lordship, 
Signor, Seigneur, Sennor, Sire, Sieicr, all originally mean, 
senior, or elder — if we go Eastward, and find that Sheick 
has a like derivation, and that the Oriental names for priests, 
as JPir, for instance, are literally interpreted old man — if 
we note in Hebrew records how primeval is the ascribed 
superiority of the first-born, how great the authority of 
elders, and how sacred the memory of pati'iarchs — and if, 
then, we remember that among divine titles are " Ancient 
of Days," and " Father of Gods and men ; " — we see how 



82 MANNERS AND FASHION. 

completely these facts harmonize with the hypothesis, thai 
the aboriginal god is the first man sufliciently great to be- 
come a tradition, the earliest whose power and deeds made 
him remembered ; that hence antiquity unavoidably became 
associated with superiority, and age with nearness in blood 
to " the powerful one ; " that so there naturally arose that 
domination of the eldest which characterizes all history, 
and that theory of human degeneracy which even yet sur- 
vives. 

We might further dwell on the facts, that Lord signi- 
fies high-born, or, as the same root gives a word meaning 
heaven, possibly heaven-born ; that, before it became com- 
mon, Sir or /Sire, as well as Father, was the distinction of 
a priest ; that worship, originally worth-ship — a term of 
respect that has been used commonly, as well as to magis- 
trates — is also our term for the act of attributing greatness 
or worth to the Deity ; so that to ascribe worth-ship to a 
man is to worship him. We might make much of the evi- 
dence that all early governments are more or less distinct- 
ly theocratic ; and that among ancient Eastern nations even 
the commonest forms and customs appear to have been in- 
fluenced by religion. We might enforce our argument re- 
specting the derivation of ceremonies, by tracing out the 
aboriginal obeisance made by putting dust on the head, 
which probably symbolizes putting the head in the dust : 
by affiliating the practice prevailing among certain tribes, 
of doing another honour by presenting him with a portion 
of hair torn from the head — an act which seems tantamount 
to saying, " I am your slave ; " by investigating the Oriental 
custom of giving to a visitor any object he speaks of ad- 
miringly, which is pretty clearly a carrying out the compli- 
ment, " All I have is yours." 

Without enlarging, however, on these and many minor 
facts, we venture to think that the evidence already assign- 
ed is sufficient to justify our position. Had the proofs been 



THREEFOLD BRANCHING OF PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT. 83 

few or of one kind, little faith could have heen placed in 
the inference. But numerous as they are, alike in the case 
of titles, in that of complimentary phrases, and in that of 
salutes — similar and simultaneous, too, as the process of de- 
preciation has been in all of these ; the evidences become 
strong by mutual confirmation. And when we recollect, 
.ilso, that not only have the results of this process been vis- 
able in various nations and in all times, but that they are 
occurring among ourselves at the present moment, and that 
the causes assigned for previous depreciations may be seen 
daily working out other ones — when we recollect this, it 
becomes scarcely possible to doubt that the process has 
been as alleged ; and that our ordinary words, acts, and 
phrases of civility were originally acknowledgments of sub- 
mission to another's omnipotence. 

Thus the general doctrine, that all kinds of government 
exercised over men were at first one government — that the 
political, the religious, and the ceremonial forms of control 
are divergent branches of a general and once indivisible 
control — begins to look tenable. When, with the above 
facts fresh in mind, we read primitive records, and find that 
" there were giants in those days " — when we remember 
that in Eastern traditions Nnnrod, among others, figures 
in all the characters of giant, king, and divinity — when we 
turn to the sculptures exhumed by Mr. Layard, and con- 
templating in them the effigies of kings driving over 
enemies, trampling on prisoners, and adored by prostrate 
slaves, then observe how their actions correspond to the 
primitive names for the divinity, " the strong," " the 
destroyer," "the powerful one" — when we find that the 
earliest temples were also the residences of the kings — and 
when, lastly, we discover that among races of men still liv- 
ing, there are current superstitions analogous to those which 
old records and old buildings indicate ; we begin to realize 
Jie probability of the hypothesis that has been set forth. 



8i MANNERS AND FASHION. 

Going back, in imagination, to the remote era when 
men's theories of things were yet unformed ; and conceiv* 
ing to ourselves the conquering chief as dimly figured in 
ancient myths, and poems, and ruins ; we may see that ah 
rules of conduct whatever spring from his will. Alike 
legislator and judge, all quarrels among his subjects are 
decided by him ; and his words become the Law. Awe of 
him is the incipient Religion ; and his maxims furnish its 
first precepts. Submission is made to him in the forma 
he prescribes ; and these give birth to Manners. From 
the first, time developes political allegiance and the ad- 
ministration of justice ; from the second, the worship 
of a being whose personality becomes ever more vague, 
and the inculcation of precepts ever more abstract ; 
from the third, forms of honour and the rules of eti- 
quette. 

In conformity with the law of evolution of all organ- 
ized bodies, that general functions are gradually separated 
into the special functions constituting them, there have 
grown up in the social organism for the better performance 
of the governmental office, an apparatus of law-courts, 
judges, and barristers; a national church, with its bishops 
and priests ; and a system of caste, titles, and ceremonies, 
administered by society at large. By the first, overt 
aggressions are cognized and punished ; by the second, 
the disposition to commit such aggressions is in some 
degree checked ; by the third, those minor breaches of 
good conduct, which the others do not notice, are de- 
nounced and chastised. Law and Religion control be- 
haviour in its essentials : Manners control it in its details. 
For regulating those daily actions which are too nu- 
merous and too unimportant to be officially directed, 
there comes into play this subtler set of restraints. And 
when we consider what these restraints are — when we 
analyze the words, and phrases, and salutes employed 



GOVERNMENT REQUIRED BY THE ABORIGINAL MAN. 85 

we see that in origin as in effect, the system is a setting 
up of temporary governments between all men who come 
in contact, for the purpose of better managing the inter- 
course between them. 

From the proposition, that these several kinds of gov- 
ernment are essentially one, both in genesis and function, 
may be deduced several important corollaries, directly 
bearing on our special topic. 

Let us first notice, that there is not only a common 
origin and office for all forms of rule, but a common neces- 
sity for them. The aboriginal man, coming fresh 
from the killing of bears and from lying in ambush for 
his enemy, has, by the necessities of his condition, a nature 
requiring to be curbed in its every impulse. Alike in war 
and in the chase, his daily discipline has been that of 
sacrificing other creatures to his own needs and passions. 
His character, bequeathed to him by ancestors who led 
similar lives, is moulded by this discipline — is fitted to this 
existence. The unlimited selfishness, the love of inflicting 
pain, the bloodthirstiness, thus kept active, he brings with 
him into the social state. These dispositions put him in 
constant danger of conflict with his equally savage neigh- 
bour. In small things as in great, in words as in deeds, 
he is aggressive ; and is hourly liable to the aggressions 
of others like natured. Only, therefore, by the most 
rigorous control exercised over all actions, can the primi- 
tive unions ■ of men be maintained. There must be a 
ruler strong, remorseless, and of indomitable will ; there 
must be a creed terrible in its threats to the disobedi- 
ent ; and there must be the most servile submission of 
all inferiors to superiors. The law must be cruel ; the 
religion must be stern ; the ceremonies must be strict. 

The co-ordinate necessity for these several kinds of re- 
straint might be largely illustrated from history were there 



86 MANNERS AND FASHION. 

space. Suffice it to point out,, that where the civil powei 
has been weak, the multiplication of thieves, assassins, and 
banditti, has indicated the approach of social dissolution ; 
that when, from the corruptness of its ministry, religion 
has lost its influence, as it did just* before the Flagellants 
appeared, the State has been endangered; and that the 
disregard of established social observances has ever been 
an accompaniment of political revolutions. Whoever 
doubts the necessity for a government of manners propor- 
tionate in strength to the co-existing political and religious 
governments, will be convinced on calling to mind that 
until recently even elaborate codes of behaviour failed to 
keep gentlemen from quarrelling in the streets and fighting 
duels in taverns ; and on remembering further, that even now 
people exhibit at the doors of a theatre, where there is no 
ceremonial law to rule them, a degree of aggressiveness 
which would produce confusion if carried into social inter- 
course. 

As might be expected, we find that, having a common 
origin and like general functions, these several controlling 
agencies act during each era with similar degrees of vigour. 
Under the Chinese despotism, stringent and multitudinous 
in its edicts and harsh m the enforcement of them, and 
associated with which there is an equally stern domestic 
despotism exercised by the eldest surviving male of the 
family, there exists a system of observances alike compli- 
cated and rigid. There is a tribunal of ceremonies. Pre- 
vious to presentation at court, ambassadors pass many days 
in practising the required forms. Social intercourse is 
cumbered by endless compliments and obeisances. Class 
distinctions are strongly marked by badges. The chief 
regret on losing an only son is, that there will be no one to 
perform the sepulchral rites. And if there wants a definite 
measure of the respect paid to social ordinances, we have 
it in the torture to which ladies submit in having their feel 



CEKEHONIAL CONTEOL IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 37 

crushed. In India, and indeed throughout the East, there 
exists a like connection between the pitiless tyranny of 
rulers, the dread terrors of immemorial creeds, and the 
rigid restraint of unchangeable customs : the caste regula- 
tions continue still unalterable ; the fashions of clothes and 
furniture have remained the same for ages ; suttees are so 
ancient as to be mentioned by Strabo and Diodorus Siculus; 
justice is still administered at the palace-gates as of old ; 
in short, " every usage is a precept of religion and a maxim 
of jurisprudence." 

A similar relationship of phenomena was exhibited in 
Europe during the Middle Ages. While all its govern- 
ments were autocratic, while feudalism held sway, while 
the Church was unshorn of its power, while the criminal 
code was full of horrors and the hell of the popular creed 
full of terrors, the rules of behaviour were both more 
numerous and more carefully conformed to than now. Dif- 
ferences of dress marked divisions of rank. Men were 
limited by law to a certain width of shoe-toes ; and no one 
below a specified degree might wear a cloak less than so 
many inches long. The symbols on banners and shields 
were carefully attended to. Heraldry was an important 
branch of knowledge. Precedence was strictly insisted on. 
And those various salutes of which we now use the abridg- 
ments were gone through in full. Even during our own 
last century, with its corrupt House of Commons and little- 
curbed monarchs, we may mark a correspondence of social 
formalities. Gentlemen were still distinguished from lower 
classes by dress ; people sacrificed themselves to inconven- 
ient requirements — as powder, hooped petticoats, and tow- 
ering head-dresses ; and children addressed their parents 
as Sir and Madam. 

A further corollary naturally following this last, and 
almost, indeed, forming part of it, is, that these several 
kinds of government decrease in stringency at the same 



88 MANNERS AND FASHION. 

rate. Simultaneously with the decline in the influence of 
priesthoods, and in the fear of eternal torments — simulta- 
neously with the mitigation of political tyranny, the growth 
of popular power, and the amelioration of criminal codes ; 
has taken place *hat diminution of formalities and that 
fading of distinctive marks, now so observable. Looking 
at home, we may note that there is less attention to prece- 
dence than there used to be. No one in our day ends an 
interview with the phrase " your humble servant." The 
employment of the word Sir, once general in social inter- 
course, is at present considered bad breeding ; and on the 
occasions calling for them, it is held vulgar to use the 
words " Tour Majesty," or " Your Royal Highness," more 
than once in a conversation. People no longer fonnally drink 
each other's healths ; and even the taking wine with each 
other at dinner has ceased to be fashionable. The taking- 
off of hats between gentlemen has been gradually falling 
into disuse. Even when the hat is removed, it is no longer 
swept out at arm's length, but is simply lifted. Hence the 
remark made upon us by foreigners, that we take off our 
hats less than any other nation in Europe — a remark that 
should be coupled with the other, that we are the freest 
nation in Europe. 

As already implied, this association of facts is not acci- 
dental. These titles of address and modes of salutation, 
bearing about them, as they all do, something of that ser- 
vility which marks their origin, become distasteful in pro- 
portion as men become more independent themselves, and 
sympathise more with the independence of others. The 
feeling which makes the modern gentleman tell the labourer 
standing bareheaded before him to put on his hat — the 
feeling which gives us a dislike to those who cringe and 
fawn — the feeling which makes us alike assert our own dig- 
nity and respect that of others — the feeling which thus 
leads us more and more to discountenance all forms and 



DECLINE OF CEREMONIAL INFLUENCE. 89 

names which confess inferiority and submission ; is the sama 
feeling which resists despotic power and inaugurates popu- 
lar government, denies the authority of the Church anc 
establishes the right of private judgment. 

A fourth fact, akin to the foregoing, is, that these sev- 
eral kinds of government not only decline together, but 
corrupt together. By the same process that a Court of 
Chancery becomes a place not for the administration of 
justice, but for the withholding of it — by the same process 
that a national church, from being an agency for moral con- 
trol, comes to be merely a thing of formulas and tithes and 
bishoprics — by this same process do titles and ceremonies 
that once had a meaning and a power become empty forms, 

Coats of arms which served to distinguish men in bat- 
tle, now figure on the carriage panels of retired grocers. 
Once a badge of high military rank, the shoulder-knot has 
become, on the modern footman, a mark of servitude, 
The name Banneret, which once marked a partially-created 
Baron — a Baron who had passed his military " little go "— - 
is now, under the modification of Baronet, applicable to 
any one favoured by wealth or interest or party feeling. 
Knighthood has so far ceased to be an honour, that men 
now honour themselves by declining it. The military dig- 
nity Mscuyer has, in the modern Esquire, become a wholly 
unmilitary affix. Not only do titles, and phrases, and sa- 
lutes cease to fulfil their original functions, but the whole 
apparatus of social forms tends to become useless for its 
original purpose — the facilitation of social intercourse. 
Those most learned in ceremonies, and most precise in the 
observance of them, are not always the best behaved ; as 
those deepest read in creeds and scriptures are not there- 
fore the most religious ; nor those who have the clearest 
notions of legality and illegality, the most honest. Just 
as lawyers are of all men the least noted for probity ; aa 
cathedral towns have a lower moral charactei than most 



90 MANNERS AND FASHION. 

others ; so, if Swift is to be believed, courtiers are " the 
most insignificant race of people that the island can aiford, 
and with the smallest tincture of good manners." 

But perhaps it is in that class of social observances 
comprehended under the term Fashion, which we must 
here discuss parenthetically, that this process of corruption 
is seen with the greatest distinctness. As contrasted with 
Manners, which dictate our minor acts in relation to other 
persons, Fashion dictates our minor acts in relation to our- 
selves. While the one prescribes that part of our deport- 
ment wmich directly affects our neighbours ; the other pre- 
scribes that part of our deportment which is primarily per- 
sonal, and in which our neighbours are concerned only as 
spectators. Thus distinguished as they are, however, the 
two have a common source. For while, as we have shown, 
Manners originate by imitation of <ne behaviour pursued 
toicards the great ; Fashion originates by imitation of the 
behaviour of the great. While the one has its derivation 
in the titles, phrases, and salutes used to those in power ; 
the other is derived from the habits and appearances exhib' 
ited by those in power. 

The Carrib mother who squeezes her child's head into 
a shape like that of the chief; the young savage who makes 
marks on himself similar to the scars carried by the war- 
riors of his tribe (which is probably the origin of tattoo- 
ing) ; the Highlander who adopts the plaid worn by the 
head of his clan ; the courtiers who affect greyness, or limp, 
or cover their necks, in imitation of their king ; and the 
people who ape the courtiers ; are alike acting under a kind 
of government connate with that of Manners, and, like it 
too, primarily beneficial. For notwithstanding the num- 
berless absurdities into which this copyism has led the peo- 
ple, from nose-rings to ear-rings, from painted faces to 
beauty-spots, from shaven heads to powdered wigs, from 
filed teeth and stained nails to bell-girdles, peaked shoes, 



CORRUPTION OF THE CEREMONIAL RULE. 9] 

and breeches stuffed with bran, — it must yet be concluded, 
that as the strong men, the successful men, the men of will s 
intelligence, and originality, who have got to the top, are, 
on the average, more likely to show judgment in their hab- 
its and tastes than the mass, the imitation of such is advan- 
tageous. 

By and by, however, Fashion, corrupting like these 
other forms of rule, almost wholly ceases to be an imitation 
of the best, and becomes an imitation of quite other than 
the best. As those who take orders are not those having 
a special fitness for the priestly office, but those who see 
their way to a living by it ; as legislators and public func- 
tionaries do not become such by virtue of their political 
insight and power to rule, but by virtue of birth, acreage, 
and class influence ; so, the self-elected clique who set the 
fashion, gain this prerogative, not by their force of nature, 
their intellect, their higher worth or better taste, but gain 
it solely by their unchecked assumption. Among the ini- 
tiated are to be found neither the noblest in rank, the 
chief in power, the best cultured, the most refined, nor 
those of greatest genius, wit, or beauty ; and their re- 
unions, so far from being superior to others, are noted 
for their inanity. Yet, by the example of these sham 
great, and not by that of the truly great, does society at 
large now regulate its goings and comings, its hours, its 
dress, its small usages. As a natural consequence, these 
have generally little or none of that suitableness which the 
theory of fashion implies they should have. But instead 
of a continual progress towards greater elegance and con- 
venience, which might be expected to occur did people 
copy the ways of the really best, or follow their own ideas 
af propriety, we have a reign of mere whim, of unreason, 
of change for the sake of change, of wanton oscillations 
from either extreme to the other — a reign of usages with- 
out meaning, times without fitness, dress without taste 



.92 MANNERS AND FASHION. 

And thus life d la mode, instead of being life conducted in 
the most rational manner, is life regulated by spendthrifts 
and idlers, milliners and tailors, dandies and silly women. 

To these several corollaries — that the various orders of 
control exercised over men have a common origin and a 
common function, are called out by co-ordinate necessities 
and co-exist in like stringency, decline together and corrupt 
together — it now only remains to add that they become need- 
less together. Consequent as all kinds of government are 
upon the unfitness of the aboriginal man for social life ; and 
diminishingin coerciveness as they all do in proportion as this 
unfitness diminishes ; they must one and all come to an end aa 
humanity acquires complete adaptation to its new conditions. 
That discipline of circumstances which has already wrought 
out such great changes in us, must go on eventually to 
work out yet greater ones. That daily curbing of the low- 
er nature and culture of the higher, which out of cannibals 
and devil worshippers has evolved philanthropists, lovers 
of peace, and haters of superstition, cannot fail to evolve out 
of these, men as much superior to them as they are to their 
progenitors. The causes that have produced past modifica- 
tions are still in action ; must continue in action as long as 
there exists any incongruity between man's desires and the 
requirements of the social state ; and must eventually make 
him organically fit for the social state. As it is now need- 
less to forbid man-eating and Fetishism, so will it ultimate- 
ly become needless to forbid murder, theft, and the minor 
offences of our criminal code. When human nature has 
grown into conformity with the moral law, there will need 
no judges and statute-books; when it spontaneously takea 
the right course in all things, as in some things it does al- 
ready, prospects of future reward or punishment will not 
be wanted as incentives ; and when fit behaviour has become 
instinctive, there will need no code of ceremonies to say 
how behaviour shall be regulated. 



REVOLT AGAINST CEREMONIAL RULE. 93 

Thus, then, may be recognised the meaning, the natural 
ness, the necessity of those various eccentricities of reform 
ers which we set out by describing. They are not acci- 
dental ; they are not mere personal caprices, as people are 
apt to suppose. On the contrary, they are inevitable re- 
sults of the law of relationship above illustrated. That 
community of genesis, function, and decay which all forms 
of restraint exhibit, is simply the obverse of the fact at 
first pointed out, that they have in two sentiments of hu- 
man nature a common preserver and a common destroyer. 
Awe of power originates and cherishes them all : love of 
freedom undermines and periodically weakens them all. 
The one defends despotism and asserts the supremacy of 
laws, adheres to old creeds and supports ecclesiastical au- 
thority, pays respect to titles and conserves forms ; the 
other, putting rectitude above legality, achieves periodical 
instalments of political liberty, inaugurates Protestantism 
and works out its consequences, ignores the senseless dic- 
tates of Fashion and emancipates men from dead customs. 

To the true reformer no institution is sacred, no belief 
above criticism. Everything shall conform itself to equity 
and reason ; nothing shall be saved by its prestige. Con- 
ceding to each man liberty to pursue his own ends and sat- 
isfy his own tastes, he demands for himself like liberty ; and 
consents to no restrictions on this, save those which other 
men's equal claims involve. No matter whether it be an 
ordinance of one man, or an ordinance of all men, if it 
trenches on his legitimate sphere of action, he denies its 
validity. The tyranny that would impose on him a partic- 
ular style of dress and a set mode of behaviour, he resists 
equally with the tyranny that would limit his buyings and 
sellings, or dictate his creed. Whether the regulation be 
formally made by a legislature, or informally made by so- 
siety at large — whether the penalty for disobedience be im- 
prisonment, or frowns and social ostracism, he sees to be a 



94: MANNERS AND FASHION. 

question of no moment. He will utter his belief notwith 
standing the threatened punishment ; he will break conven- 
tions spite of the petty persecutions that will be visited on 
him. Show him that his actions are inimical to his fellow- 
men, and he will pause. Prove that he is disregarding 
their legitimate claims — that he is doing what in the nature 
of things must produce unhappiness ; and he will alter hia 
course. But until you do this — until you demonstrate that 
his proceedings are essentially inconvenient or inelegant, 
essentially irrational, unjust, or ungenerous, he will perse- 
vere. 

Some, indeed, argue that his conduct is unjust and un- 
generous. They say that he has no right to annoy other 
people by his whims ; that the gentleman to whom his let- 
ter comes with no " Esq." appended to the address, and the 
lady whose evening party he enters with gloveless hands, 
are vexed at what they consider his want of respect, or want 
of breeding ; that thus his eccentricities cannot be indulged 
save at the expense of his neighbours' feelings ; and that 
hence his nonconformity is in plain terms selfishness. 

He answers that this position, if logically developed, 
would deprive men of all liberty whatever. Each must 
conform all his acts to the public taste, and not his own. 
The public taste on every point having been once ascer- 
tained, men's habits must thenceforth remain for ever 
fixed ; seeing that no man can adopt other habits without 
sinning against the public taste, and giving people disagree- 
able feelings. Consequently, be it an era of pig-tails or high- 
heeled shoes, of starched ruff's or trunk-hose, all must con- 
tinue to wear pig-tails, high-heeled shoes, starched ruffs, or 
trunk-hose to the crack of doom. 

If it be still urged that he is not justified in breaking 
through others' forms that he may establish his own, and 
so sacrificing the wishes of many to the wishes of one, he 
replies that all religious and political changes might be 



THE CONVENTION-BKEAKEE's VINDICATION. 95 

negatived on like grounds. He asks whether Luther's 
sayings and doings were not extremely offensive to the 
mass of his contemporaries ; whether the resistance of 
Hampden was not disgusting to the time-servers around 
him; whether every reformer has not shocked men's 
prejudices, and given immense displeasure by the opinions 
he uttered. The affirmative answer he follows up by 
demanding what right the reformer has, then, to utter 
these opinions ; whether he is not sacrificing the feelings 
of many to the feelings of one : and so proves that, to 
be consistent, his antagonists must condemn not only 
all nonconformity in actions, but all nonconformity in 
thoughts. 

His antagonists rejoin that his position, too, may be 
pushed to an absurdity. They argue that if a man may 
offend by the disregard of some forms, he may as legiti- 
mately do so by the disregard of all ; and they inquire — 
Why should he not go out to dinner in a dirty shirt, and 
with an unshorn chin ? Why should he not spit on the 
drawing-room carpet, and stretch his heels up to the man- 
tel-shelf? 

The convention-breaker answers, that to ask this, im« 
plies a confounding of two widely-different classes of 
actions — the actions that are essentially displeasurable to 
those around, with the actions that are but incidentally 
displeasurable to them. He whose skin is so unclean as to 
offend the nostrils of his neighbours, or he who talks so 
loudly as to disturb a whole room, may be justly com- 
plained of, and rightly excluded by society from its assem- 
blies. But he who presents himself in a surtout in place 
of a dress-coat, or in brown trousers instead of black, gives 
offence not to men's senses, or their innate tastes, but 
merely to their prejudices, their bigotry of convention. It 
cannot be said that his costume is less elegant or less 
intrinsically appropriate than the one prescribed ; seeing 



yb MANNERS AND FASHION. 

that a few hours earlier in the day it is admired. It is the 
implied rebellion, therefore, that annoys. How little the 
cause of quarrel has to do with the dress itself, is seen in 
the fact that a century ago black clothes would have been 
thought preposterous for hours of recreation, and that 
a few years hence some now forbidden style may be nearer 
the requirements of Fashion than the present one. Thus 
the reformer explains that it is not against the natural 
restraints, but against the artificial ones, that he pro- 
tests ; and that manifestly the fire of sneers and angry 
glances which he has to bear, is poured upon him be- 
cause he will not bow down to the idol which society has 
set up. 

Should he be asked how we are to distinguish between 
conduct that is absolutely disagreeable to others, and con- 
duct that is relatively so, he answers, that they will distin- 
guish themselves, if men will let them. Actions intrin- 
sically repugnant will ever be frowned upon, and must 
ever remain as exceptional as now. Actions not intrin- 
sically repugnant will establish themselves as proper. N~o 
relaxation of customs will introduce the practice of going 
to a party in muddy boots, and with unwashed hands ; for 
the dislike of dirt would continue were Fashion abolished 
to-morrow. That love of approbation which now makes 
people so solicitous to be en regie would still exist — would 
still make them careful of their personal appearance-^ 
would still induce them to seek admiration by making 
themselves ornamental — would still cause them to respect 
the natural laws of good behaviour, as they now do the 
artificial ones. The change would simply be from a repul- 
sive monotony to a picturesque variety. And if there be 
any regulations respecting which it is uncertain whether 
they are based on reality or on convention, experiment 
will soon decide, if due scope be allowed. 

When at length the controversy comes round, as con 



THE JONVENTION-BREAKEk's VINDICATION. 97 

troversies often do, to the point whence it started, and the 
" party of order " repeat their charge against the rebel, 
that he is sacrificing the feelings of others to the gratifica 
tion of his own wilfulness, he replies once for all that they 
cheat themselves by mis-statements. He accuses them of 
being so despotic, that, not content with being masters 
over their own ways and habits, they would be masters 
over his also ; and grumble because he will not let them. 
He merely asks the same freedom which they exercise ; 
they, however, propose to regulate his course as well as 
their own — to cut and clip his mode of life into agreement 
with their approved pattern ; and then charge him with 
wilfulness and selfishness, because he does not quietly 
submit ! He warns them that he shall resist, never- 
theless ; and that he shall do so, not only for the asser- 
tion of his own independence, but for their good. He tells 
them that they are slaves, and know it not ; that they 
are shackled, and kiss their chains ; that they have lived 
all their days in prison, and complain at the walls being 
broken down. He says he must persevere, however, 
w T ith a view to his own release ; and in spite of their 
present expostulations, he prophesies that when they have 
recovered from the fright which the prospect of free- 
dom produces, they will thank him for aiding in their 
emancipation. 

Unamiable as seems this find-fault mood, offensive as is 
this defiant attitude, we must beware of overlooking the 
truths enunciated, in dislike of the advocacy. It is an un- 
fortunate hindrance to all innovation, that in virtue of 
their very function, the innovators stand in a position of 
antagonism ; and the disagreeable manners, and sayings, 
and doings, which this antagonism generates, are com- 
monly associated with the doctrines promulgated. Quite 
forgetting that whether the thing attacked be good or 
bad, the combative spirit is necessarily repulsive; and quite 



88 MANNERS AND FASHION- 

forgetting that the toleration of abuses seems amiable 
merely from its passivity ; the mass of men contract a bias 
against advanced views, and in favour of stationary ones, 
from intercourse with their respective adherents. " Con- 
servatism," as Emerson says, " is debonnair and social ; 
reform is individual and imperious." And this remains 
true, however vicious the system conserved, however 
righteous the reform to be effected. Nay, the indigna-' 
tion of the purists is usually extreme in proportion as 
the evils to be got rid of are great. The more urgent 
the required change, the more intemperate is the vehe- 
mence of its promoters. Let no one, then, confound with 
the principles of this social nonconformity the acerbity 
and the disagreeable self-assertion of those who first dis- 
play it. 

The most plausible objection raised against resistance 
to conventions, is grounded on its impolicy, considered 
even from the progressist's point of view. It is urged by 
many of the more liberal and intelligent — usually those 
who have themselves shown some independence of be- 
haviour in earlier days — that to rebel in these small 
matters is to destroy your own power of helping on 
reform in greater matters. " If you show yourself eccen- 
tric in manners or dress, the world," they say, " will not 
listen to you. You will be considered as crotchety, and 
impracticable. The opinions you express on important 
subjects, which might have been treated with respect had 
you conformed on minor points, will now inevitably be 
put down among your singularities ; and thus, by dissent- 
ing in trifles, you disable yourself from spreading dissent 
in essentials." 

Only noting, as we pass, that this is one of those antici- 
pations which bring about their own fulfilment — tha*t it is 
because most who disapprove these conventions do not sho\* 



CONSEQUENCES OF MRS. GRUNDY'S TYRANNY. 99 

their disapproval, that the few who do show it look eccen. 
trie — and that did all act out their convictions, no such in 
ference as the above would be drawn, and no such evil 
would result ; — noting this as we pass, we go on to reply 
that these social restraints, and forms, and requirements, 
are not small evils, but among the greatest. Estimate their 
sum total, and we doubt whether they would not exceed 
•most othei's. Could we add up the trouble, the cost, the 
jealousies, vexations, misunderstandings, the loss of time 
and the loss of pleasure, which these conventions entail — 
could we clearly realize the extent to which we are all dai- 
ly hampered by them, daily enslaved by them ; we should 
perhaps come to the conclusion that the tyranny of Mrs. 
Grundy is worse than any other tyranny we suffer under. 
Let us look at a few of its hurtful results ; beginning with 
those of minor importance. 

It produces extravagance. The desire to be comme il 
faut, which underlies all conformities, whether of manners, 
dress, or styles of entertainment, is the desire which makes 
many a spendthrift and many a bankrupt. To " keep up 
appearances," to have a house in an approved quarter fur- 
nished in the latest taste, to give expensive dinners and 
crowded soirees, is an ambition forming the natural outcome 
of the conformist spirit. It is needless to enlarge on these 
follies : they have been satirized by host? of writers, and in 
every drawing-room. All that here concerns us, is to point 
out that the respect for social observances, which men think 
so praiseworthy, has the same root with this effort to be 
fashionable in mode of living ; and that, other things equal, 
the last cannot be diminished without the first being dimin- 
ished also. If, now, we consider all that this extravagance 
entails — if we count up the robbed tradesmen, the stinted 
governesses, the ill-educated children, the fleeced relatives, 
who have to suffer from it — if we mark the anxiety and the 
many moral delinquencies which its perpetrators involve 



100 MANNEKS AND FASHION. 

themselves in ; we shall see that this regard for conventions 
is not quite so innocent as it looks. 

Again, it decreases the amount of social intercourse. 
Passing over the reckless, and those who make a great dis- 
play on speculation with the occasional result of getting on 
in the world to the exclusion of much better men, we come 
to the far larger class who, being prudent and honest 
enough not to exceed their means, and yet having a strong 
wish to be " resj>ectable," are obliged to limit their enter- 
tainments to the smallest possible number ; and that each 
of these may be turned to the greatest advantage in meet- 
ing the claims upon their hospitality, are induced to issue 
their invitations with little or no regard to the comfort or 
mutual fitness of their guests. A few inconveniently- large 
assemblies, made up of people mostly strange to each other 
or but distantly acquainted, and having scarcely any tastes 
in common, are made to serve in place of many small par- 
ties of friends intimate enough to have some bond of 
thought and sympathy. Thus the quantity of intercourse 
is diminished, and the quality deteriorated. Because it is 
the custom to make costly preparations and provide costly 
refreshments ; and because it entails both less expense and 
less trouble to do this for many persons on a few occasions 
than for few persons on many occasions ; the reunions of 
our less wealthy classes are rendered alike infrequent and 
tedious. 

Let it be further observed, that the existing formalities 
of social intercourse drive away many who most need its 
refining influence : and drive them into injurious habits and 
associations. Not a few men, and not the least sensible men 
either, give up in disgust this going out to stately dinners, 
and stiff evening-parties ; and instead, seek society in clubs, 
and cigar-divans, and taverns. " I 'm sick of this standing 
about in drawing-rooms, talking nonsense, and trying to 
look happy," will answer one of them when taxed with hia 



AN ESTIMATE OF FASHIONABLE PARTIES. 101 

desertion. " Wliy should I any longer waste time and 
money, and temper ? Once I was ready enough to rush 
home from the office to dress ; I sported embroidered shirts, 
submitted to tight boots, and cared nothing for tailors' and 
haberdashers' bills. I know better now. My patience last- 
ed a good while ; for though I found each night pass stu<- 
pidly, I always hoped the next would make amends. But 
I'm undeceived. Cab-hire and kid gloves cost more than 
any evening party pays for ; or rather — it is worth the cost 
of them to avoid the party. No, no ; I'll no more of it. 
Why should I pay five shillings a time for the privilege of 
being bored ? " 

If, now, we consider that this very common mood tends 
towards billiard-rooms, towards long sittings over cigars 
and brandy-aud-water, towards Evans's and the Coal Hole, 
towards every place where amusement may be had ; it be- 
comes a question whether these precise observances which 
hamper our set meetings, have not to answer for much of 
the prevalent dissoluteness. Men must have excitements 
of some kind or other ; and if debarred from higher ones 
will fall back upon lower. It is not that those who thus 
take to irregular habits are essentially those of low tastes. 
Often it is quite the reverse. Among half a dozen intimate 
friends, abandoning formalities and sitting at ease round 
the fire, none will enter with greater enjoyment into the 
nighest kind of social intercourse — the genuine communion 
of thought and feeling ; and if the circle includes women of 
intelligence and refinement, so much the greater is their 
pleasure. It is because they will no longer be choked with 
the mere dry husks of conversation which society offers 
them, that they fly its assemblies, and seek those with whom 
they may have discourse that is at least real, though unpol- 
ished. The men who thus long for substantial mental sym- 
pathy, and will go where they can get it, are often, indeed, 
much better at the core than the men who are content with 



L02 MANNERS AND FASHION. 

the inanities of gloved and scented party-goers — men who 
feel no need to come morally nearer to their fellow crea- 
tures than they can come while standing, tea-cup in hand, 
answering trifles with trifles ; and who, by feeling no such 
need, prove themselves shallow-thoughted and cold-hearted. 

It is true, that some who shun drawing-rooms do so from 
inability to bear the restraints prescribed by a genuine re- 
finement, and that they would be greatly improved by being 
kept under these restraints. But it is not less true that, by 
adding to the legitimate restraints, which are based on con. 
venience and a regard for others, a host of factitious re- 
straints based only on convention, the refining discipline, 
which would else have been borne with benefit, is rendered 
unbearable, and so misses its end. Excess of government 
invariably defeats itself by driving away those to be gov- 
erned. And if over all who desert its entertainments in 
disgust either at their emptiness or their formality, society 
thus loses its salutary influence — if such not only fail to re- 
ceive that moral culture which the company of ladies, when 
rationally regulated, would give them, but, in default of 
other relaxation, are driven into habits and companionships 
which often end in gambling and drunkenness ; must we 
not say that here, too, is an evil not to be passed over as 
insignificant ? 

Then consider what a blighting effect these multitudi- 
nous preparations and ceremonies have upon the pleasures 
they profess to subserve. Who, on calling to mind the oc- 
casions of his highest social enjoyments, does not find them 
to have been wholly informal, perhaps impromptu ? How 
delightful a picnic of friends, who forget all observances 
save those dictated by good nature ! How pleasant the 
little unpretended gatherings of book-societies, and the 
like ; or those purely accidental meetings of a few people 
well known to each other ! Then, indeed, we may see that 
" a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." Cheeks 



CONDITIONS OF SOCIAL ENJOYMENT. 103 

8ush, and eyes sparkle. The witty grow brilliant, and even 
the dull are excited into saying good things. There is an 
overflow of topics ; and the right thought, and the right 
wards to put it in, spring up unsought. Grave alternates 
with gay : now serious converse, and now jokes, anecdotes, 
and playful raillery. Everyone's best nature is shown 
everyone's best feelings are in pleasurable activity; and, 
for the time, life seems well worth having. 

Go now and dress for some half-past eight dinner, or 
some ten o'clock " at home ; " and present yourself in spot- 
less attire, with every hair arranged to perfection. How 
great the difference ! The enjoyment seems in the inverse 
ratio of the preparation. These figures, got up with such 
finish and precision, appear but half alive. They have fro- 
zen each other by their primness ; and your faculties feel 
the numbing effects of the atmosphere the moment you 
enter it. All those thoughts, so nimble and so apt awhile 
since, have disappeared — have suddenly acquired a preter- 
natural power of eluding you. If you venture a remark to 
your neighbour, there comes a trite rejoinder, and there it 
ends. No subject you can hit upon outlives half a dozen 
sentences. Nothing that is said excites any real interest in 
you ; and you feel that all you say is listened to with apathy. 
By some strange magic, things that usually give pleasure 
seem to have lost all charm. 

You have a taste for art. Weary of frivolous talk, you 
turn to the table, and find that the book of engravings and 
the portfolio of photographs are as flat as the conversation. 
You are fond of music. Yet the singing, good as it is, you 
hear with utter indifference ; and say " Thank you" with a 
sense of being a profound hypocrite. Wholly at ease 
though you could be, for your own part, you find that your 
sympathies will not let you. You see young gentlemen 
feeling whether their ties are properly adjusted, looking 
vacantly round, and considering what they shall do next. 



104: MANNEES AND FASHION. 

You see ladies sitting disconsolately, waiting for some one 
to speak to them, and wishing they had the whei-ewith tc 
occupy their fingers. You see the hostess standing about 
the doorway, keeping a factitious smile on her face, and 
racking her brain to find the requisite nothings with which 
to greet her guests as they enter. You see numberlesa 
traits of weariness and embarrassment ; and, if you have any 
fellow feeling, these cannot fail to produce a feeling of dis- 
comfort. The disorder is catching ; and do what you will 
you cannot resist the general infection. You struggle 
against it ; you make spasmodic efforts to be lively ; but 
none of your sallies or your good stories do more than 
raise a simper or a forced laugh : intellect and feeling are 
alike asphyxiated. And when, at length, yielding to your 
disgust, you rush away, how great is the relief when you 
get into the fresh air, and see the stars ! How you " Thank 
God, that's over ! " and half resolve to avoid all such bore- 
dom for the future ! 

What, now, is the secret of this perpetual miscarriage 
and disappointment ? Does not the fault he with all these 
needless adjuncts — these elaborate dressings, these set 
forms, these expensive preparations, these many devices 
and arrangements that imply trouble and raise expectation? 
Who that has lived thirty years in the world has not dis- 
covered that Pleasure is coy ; and must not be too directly 
pursued, but must be caught unawares ? An air from a 
street-piano, heard while at work, will often gratify more 
than the choicest music played at a concert by the most 
accomplished musicians. A single good picture seen in a 
dealer's window, may give keener enjoyment than a whole 
exhibition gone through with catalogue and pencil. By 
the time we have got ready our elaborate apparatus by 
which to secure happiness, the happiness is gone. It is too 
gubtle to be contained in these receivers, garnished with 
compliments, and fenced round with etiquette. The more 



CONDITIONS OF SOCIAL ENJOYMENT. 105 

we multiply and complicate appliances, the more certain 
are we to drive it away. 

The reason is patent enough. These higher emotions 
to which social intercourse ministers, are of extremely com- 
plex nature ; they consequently depend for their production 
upon very numerous conditions ; the more numerous the 
conditions, the greater the liability that one or other of 
them will be disturbed, and the emotions consequently pre- 
vented. It takes a considerable misfortune to destroy ap- 
petite ; but cordial sympathy with those around may be ex- 
tinguished by a look or a word. Hence it follows, that the 
more multiplied the unnecessary requirements with which 
social intercourse is surrounded, the less likely are its 
pleasures to be achieved. It is difficult enough to fulfil 
continuously all the essentials to a pleasurable communion 
with others : how much more difficult, then, must it be 
continuously to fulfil a host of non-essentials also ! It is, 
_ndeed, impossible. The attempt inevitably ends in the 
sacrifice of the first to the last — the essentials to the non- 
essentials. What chance is there of getting any genuine 
response from the lady who is thinking of your stupidity in 
taking her in to dinner on the wrong arm ? How are you 
likely to have agreeable converse with the gentleman who 
is fuming internally because he is not placed next to the 
hostess ? Formalities, familiar as they may become, neces- 
sarily occupy attention — necessarily multiply the occasions 
for mistake, misunderstanding, and jealousy, on the part of 
one or other — necessarily distract all minds from the 
thoughts and feelings that should occupy them — necessa- 
rily, therefore, subvert those conditions under which only 
any sterling intercourse is to be had. 

And this indeed is the fatal mischief which these con- 
ventions entail — a mischief to which every other is sec- 
ondary. They destroy those highest of our pleasures 
which they profess to subserve. All institutions are alike 



106 MANNEK8 AND FASHION. 

in this, that however useful, and needful even, they origi 
sally were, they not only in the end cease to be so, but be- 
come detrimental. While humanity is growing, they con- 
tinue fixed ; daily get more mechanical and unvital ; and 
by and by tend to strangle what they before preserved. 
It is not simply that they become corrupt and fail to act 
they become obstructions. Old forms of government finall} 
grow so oppressive, that they must be thrown off even at 
the risk of reigns of terror. Old creeds end in being dead 
formulas, which no longer aid but distort and arrest the 
general mind; while the State-churches administering them, 
come to be instruments for subsidizing conservatism and 
repressing progress. Old schemes of education, incarnated 
in public schools and colleges, continue filling the heads of 
new generations with what has become relatively useless 
knowledge, and, by consequence, excluding knowledge 
which is useful. Not an organization of any kind — politi- 
cal, religious, literary, philanthropic — but what, by its ever- 
multiplying regulations, its accumulating wealth, its yearly 
addition of officers, and the creeping into it of patronage 
and party feeling, eventually loses its original spirit, and 
sinks into a mere lifeless mechanism, worked with a view 
to private ends — a mechanism whieh not merely fails of its 
first purpose, but is a positive hindrance to it. 

Thus is it, too, with social usages. "We read of the Chi- 
nese that they have " ponderous ceremonies transmitted 
from time immemorial," which make social intercourse a 
burden. The court forms prescribed by monarchs for their 
own exaltation, have, in all times and places, ended in con- 
suming the comfort of their lives. And so the artificial 
observances of the dining-room and saloon, in proportion 
as they are many and strict, extinguish that agreeable com- 
munion which they were originally intended to secure. 
The dislike with which people commonly speak of society 
that is " formal," and " stiff," and " ceremonious," implies 



THE TRUE SOCIAL REQUIREMENT. 107 

the general recognition of this fact ; and this recognition, 
logically developed, involves that all usages of behaviour 
which are not based on natural requirements, are injurious. 
That these conventions defeat their own ends is no new 
assertion. Swift, criticising the manners of his day, says — 
" Wise men are often more uneasy at the over-civility of 
these refiners than they could possibly be in the conversa- 
tion of peasants and mechanics." 

But it is not only in these details that the self-defeating 
action of our arrangements is traceable : it is traceable in 
the very substance and nature of them. Our social inter- 
course, as commonly managed, is a mere semblance of the 
reality sought. What is it that we want ? Some sympa- 
thetic converse with our fellow-creatures : some converse 
that shall not be mere dead words, but the vehicle of living 
thoughts and feelings — converse in which the eyes and the 
face shall speak, and the tones of the voice be full of mean- 
ing — converse which shall make us feel no longer alone, 
but shall draw us closer to another, and double our own 
emotions by adding another's to them. Who is there that 
has not, from time to time, felt how cold and flat is all this 
talk about politics and science, and the new books and the 
new men, and how a genuine utterance of fellow-feeling 
outweighs the whole of it ? Mark the words of Bacon : — 
" For a crowd is not a company, and faces are but a gallery 
of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is 
no love." 

If this be true, then it is only after acquaintance has 
grown into intimacy, and intimacy has ripened into friend- 
ship, that the real communion which men need becomes 
possible. A rationally-formed circle must consist almost 
wholly of those on terms of familiarity and regard, with 
but one or two strangers. What folly, then, underlies the 
whole system of our grand dinners, our " at homes," our 
evening parties — assemblages made up of many who nevei 



108 MANNERS AND FASHION. 

met before, many others who just bow to each other, many 
others who though familiar feel mutual indifference, with 
just a few real friends lost in the general mass ! You need 
but look round at the artificial expressions of face, to sec 
at once how it is. All have their disguises on ; and how 
can there be sympathy between masks ? No wonder that 
in private every one exclaims against the stupidity of these 
gatherings. No wonder that hostesses get them up rather 
because they must than because they wish. No wonder 
that the invited go less from the expectation of pleasure 
than from fear of giving offence. The whole thing is a gi- 
gantic mistake — an organized disappointment. 

And then note, lastly, that in this case, as in all others,, 
when an organization has become effete and inoperative for 
its legitimate purpose, it is employed for quite other ones 
— quite opposite ones. What is the usual plea put in for 
giving and attending these tedious assemblies ? "I admit 
that they are stupid and frivolous enough," replies every 
man to your criticisms ; " but then, you know, one must 
keep up one's connections." And could you get from his 
wife a sincere answer, it would be — " Like you, I am sick 
of these frivolities ; but then, we must get our daughtei-s 
married." The one knows that there is a profession to 
push, a practice to gain, a business to extend : or parlia- 
mentary influence, or county patronage, or votes, or office, 
to be got : position, berths, favours, profit. The other's 
thoughts runs upon husbands and settlements, wives and 
dowries. Worthless for their ostensible purpose of daily 
bringing human beings into pleasurable relations with each 
other, these cumbrous appliances of our social intercourse 
are now perseveringly kept in action with a view to the 
pecuniary and matrimonial results which they indirectly 
produce. 

Who then shall say that the reform of our system of 
observances is unimportant ? When we see how this sys- 



REFORMATION OF SOCIAL OBSERVANCES. 109 

tern induces fashionable extravagance, with its entailed 
bankruptcy and ruin — when we mark how greatly it limits 
the amount of social intercourse among the less wealthy 
classes — when we find that many who most need to be dis- 
ciplined by mixing with the refined are driven away by it, 
and led into dangerous and often fatal courses — when we 
count up the many minor evils it inflicts, the extra work 
which its costliness entails on all professional and mercan- 
tile men, the damage to public taste in dress and decora- 
tion by the setting up of its absurdities as standards for 
imitation, the injury to health indicated in the faces of its 
devotees at the close of the London season, the mortality 
of milliners and the like, which its sudden exigencies yearly 
involve ; — and when to all these we add its fatal sin, that it 
blights, withers up, and kills, that high enjoyment it pro- 
fessedly ministers to — that enjoyment which is a chief end 
of our hard struggling in life to obtain — shall we not con- 
clude that to reform our system of etiquette and fashion, is 
an aim yielding to few in urgency ? 

There needs, then, a protestantism in social usages. 
Forms that have ceased to facilitate and have become ob- 
structive — whether political, religious, or other — have ever 
to be swept away ; and eventually are so swept away in all 
cases. Signs are not wanting that some change is at hand. 
A host of satirists, led on by Thackeray, have been for years 
engaged in bringing our sham-festivities, and our fashiona- 
ble follies, into contempt ; and in their candid moods, most 
men laugh at the frivolities with which they and the world 
in general are deluded. Ridicule has always been a revo- 
lutionary agent. That which is habitually assailed with 
sneers and sarcasms cannot long survive. Institutions that 
have lost their roots in men's respect and faith are doomed; 
and the day of their dissolution is not far off. The time is 
approaching, then, when our system of social observances 



110 MANNERS AND FASHION. 

must pass through some crisis, out of which it will come 
purified and comparatively simple. 

How this crisis will be brought about, no one can with 
any certainty say. Whether by the continuance and in- 
crease of individual protests, or whether by the union of 
many persons for the practice and propagation of some 
better system, the future alone can decide. The influence 
of dissentients acting without co-operation, seems, under 
the present state of things, inadequate. Standing severally 
alone, and having no well-defined views ; frowned on by 
conformists, and expostulated with even by those who 
secretly sympathize with them ; subject to petty persecu- 
tions, and unable to trace any benefit produced by their 
example ; they are apt, one by one, to give up their attempts 
as hopeless. The young convention-breaker eventually 
finds that he pays too heavily for his nonconformity. Hat- 
ing, for example, everything that bears about it any rem- 
nant of servility, he determines, in the ardour of his inde- 
pendence, that he will uncover to no one. But what he 
means simply as a general protest, he finds that ladies in- 
terpret into a personal disrespect. Though he sees that, 
from the days of chivalry downwards, these marks of su- 
preme consideration paid to the other sex have been but 
a hypocritical counterpart to the actual subjection in which 
men have held them — a pretended submission to compen- 
sate for a real domination ; and though he sees that 
when the true dignity of women is recognised, the mock 
dignities given to them will be abolished ; yet he does 
not like to be thus misunderstood, and so hesitates in his 
practice. 

In other cases, again, his courage fails him. Such of 
Ms unconventionalities as can be attributed only to eccen- 
tricity, he has no qualms about : for, on the whole, he feela 
rather complimented than otherwise in being considered a 
disregarder of public opinion. But when they are liable tc 



DIFFICULTIES OF THE SOCIAL NONCONFORMIST. Ill 

be put down to ignorance, to ill-breeding, or to poverty, 
he becomes a coward. However clearly the recent innova- 
tion of eating some kinds of fish with knife and fork proves 
the fork-and-bread practice to have had little but caprice 
for its basis, yet he dares not wholly ignore that practice 
while fashion partially maintains it. Though he thinks 
that a silk handkerchief is quite as appropriate for drawing- 
room use as a white cambric one, he is not altogether at 
ease in acting out his opinion. Then, too, he begins to 
perceive that his resistance to prescription brings round 
disadvantageous results which he had not calculated upon. 
He had expected that it would save him from a great deal 
of social intercourse of a frivolous kind — that it would 
offend the fools, but not the sensible people ; and so would 
serve as a self-acting test by which those worth knowing 
would be separated from those not worth knowing. But 
the fools prove to be so greatly in the majority that, by 
offending them, he closes against himself nearly all the 
avenues though which the sensible people are to be 
reached. Thus he finds, that his nonconformity is fre- 
quently misinterpreted ; that there are but few directions 
in which he dares to carry it consistently out ; that the 
annoyances and disadvantages which it brings upon him 
are greater than he anticipated ; and that the chances of 
his doing any good are very remote. Hence he gradually 
loses resolution, and lapses, step by step, into the ordinary 
routine of observances. 

Abortive as individual protests thus generally turn out, 
it may possibly be that nothing effectual will be done until 
there arises some organized resistance to this invisible 
despotism, by which our modes and habits are dictated. 
It may happen, that the government of Manners and Fash- 
ion will be rendered less tyrannical, as the political and 
religious governments have been, by some antagonistic 
union. Alike in Church and State, men's first emancipa 



112 MANNERS AND FASHION. 

tions from excess of restriction were achieved by numbers, 
bound together by a common creed or a common political 
faith. What remained undone while there were but indivi- 
dual schismatics or rebels, was effected when there came 
to be many acting in concert. It is tolerably clear that 
these earliest instalments of freedom could not have been 
obtained in any other way ; for so long as the feeling of 
personal independence was weak and the rule strong, there 
could never have been a sufficient number of separate dis- 
sentients to produce the desired results. Only in these 
later times, during which the secular and spiritual controls 
have been growing less coercive, and the tendency towards 
individual liberty greater, has it become possible for smaller 
and smaller sects and parties to fight against established 
creeds and laws ; until now men may safely stand even 
alone in their antagonism. 

The failure of individual nonconformity to customs, as 
above illustrated, suggests that an analogous series of 
changes may have to be gone through in this case also. It 
is true that the lex non scripta differs from the lex scripta 
in this, that, being unwritten, it is more readily altered ; 
and that it has, from time to time, been quietly ameliorated. 
Nevertheless, we shall find that the analogy holds substan- 
tially good. For in this case, as in the others, the essen- 
tial revolution is not the substituting of any one set of 
restraints for any other, but the limiting or abolishing the 
authority which prescribes restraints. Just as the funda- 
mental change inaugurated by the Reformation, was not a 
superseding of one creed by another, but an ignoring of 
the arbiter who before dictated creeds — just as the funda- 
mental change which Democracy long ago commenced, 
was not from this particular law to that, but from the 
despotism of one to the freedom of all ; so, the paralled 
change yet to be wrought out in this supplementary gov 
eminent of which we are treating, is not the replacing of 



A PROTESTANTISM IN SOCIAL USAGES NEEDED. 113 

absurd usages by sensible ones, but the dethronement of 
that secret, irresponsible power which now imposes our 
usages, and the assertion of the right of all individuals to 
choose their own usages. In rules of living, a West-end 
clique is our Pope ; and we are all papists, with but a mere 
sprinkling of heretics. On all who decisively rebel, comes 
down the penalty of excommunication, with its long 
catalogue of disagreeable and, indeed, serious conse- 
quences. 

The liberty of the subject asserted in our constitution, 
and ever on the increase, has yet to be wrested from this 
subtler tyranny. The right of private judgment, which 
our ancestors wrung from the church, remains to be 
claimed from this dictator of our habits. Or, as before 
said, to free us from these idolatries and superstitious con- 
formities, there has still to come a protestantism in social 
usages. Parallel, therefore, as is the change to be 
wrought out, it seems not improbable .that it may be 
wrought out in an analogous way. That influence which 
solitary dissentients fail to gain, and that perseverance 
which they lack, may come into existence when they unite. 
That persecution which the world now visits upon them 
from mistaking their nonconformity for ignorance or dis- 
respect, may diminish when it is seen to result from 
principle. The penalty which exclusion now entails may 
disappear when they become numerous enough to form 
visiting circles of their own. And when a successful 
stand has been made, and the brunt of the opposition 
has passed, that large amount of secret dislike to our 
observances which now pervades society, may manifest 
itself with sufficient power to effect the desired eman- 
cipation. 

Whether such will be the process, time alone can de- 
cide. That community of origin, growth, supremacy, and 
decadence, which we have found among all kinds of gov- 



114: MANNERS AND FASHION. 

eminent, suggests a community in modes of change also 
On the other hand, Nature often performs substantially 
similar operations, in ways apparently different. Hence 
these details can never be foretold. 

Meanwhile, let us glance at the conclusions that have 
been reached. On the one side, government, originally 
one, and afterwards subdivided for the better fulfilment of 
its function, must be considered as having ever been, in all 
its branches — political, religious, and ceremonial — bene- 
ficial ; and, indeed, absolutely necessary. On the other 
side, government, under all its forms, must be regarded as 
subserving a temporary office, made needful by the unfit- 
ness of aboriginal humanity for social life ; and the succes- 
sive diminutions of its coerciveness in State, in Church, and 
in Custom, must be looked upon as steps towards its final 
disappearance. To complete the conception, there requires 
to be borne in mind the third fact, that the genesis, the 
maintenance, and the decline of all governments, however 
named, are alike brought about by the humanity to be con- 
trolled : from which may be drawn the inference that, on 
the average, restrictions of every kind cannot last much 
longer than they are wanted, and cannot be destroyed 
much faster than they ought to be. 

Society, in all its developments, undergoes the. process 
of exuviation. These old forms which it successively 
throws off, have all been once vitally united with it — have 
severally served as the protective envelopes within which 
a higher humanity was being evolved. They are cast 
aside only when they become hindrances — only when some 
inner and better envelope has been formed ; and they be- 
queath to us all that there was in them good. The periodi- 
cal abolitions of tyrannical laws have left the administration 
of justice not only uninjured, but purified. Dead and 
buried creeds have not carried with them the essentia] 



ONLY THE DEAD EOEMS PASS AWAY. 115 

morality they contained, which still exists, uncontaminated 
by the sloughs of superstition. And all that there is of 
justice and kindness and beauty, embodied in our cum- 
brous forms of etiquette, will live perennially when the 
fonns themselves have been forgotten. 



III. 

THE GENESIS OE SCIENCE. 



THERE has ever prevailed among men a vague notion 
that scientific knowledge differs in nature from ordinary 
knowledge. By the Greeks, with whom Mathematics — 
literally things learnt — was alonQ considered as knowledge 
proper, the distinction must have been strongly felt ; and 
it has ever since maintained itself in the general mind. 
Though, considering the contrast between the achievements 
of science and those of daily unmethodic thinking, it is not 
surprising that such a distinction has been assumed ; yet it 
needs but to rise a little above the common point of view, 
to see that no such distinction can really exist : or that at 
best, it is but a superficial distinction. The same faculties 
are employed in both cases ; and in both cases their mode 
of operation is fundamentally the same. 

If we say that science is organized knowledge, we are 
met by the truth that all knowledge is organized in a great- 
er or less degree — that the commonest actions of the house- 
hold and the field presuppose facts colligated, inferences 
drawn, results expected ; and that the general success of 
these actions proves the data by which they were guided 
to have been correctly put together. If, again, we say 
that science is prevision — is a seeing beforehand — is a know- 



THE GEEM OF SCIENCE ESI ORDINARY KNOWLEDGE. 117 

ing in what times, places, combinations, or sequences, spe- 
cified phenomena will be found ; we are yet obliged to con 
fess that the definition includes much that is utterly foreign 
to science in its ordinary acceptation. For example, a child's 
knowledge of an apple. This, as far as it goes consists in 
previsions. When a child sees a certain form and colours, 
it knows that if it puts out its hand it will have certain im- 
pressions of resistance, and roundness, and smoothness; 
and if it bites, a certain taste. And manifestly its general 
acquaintance with surrounding objects is of like nature — is 
made up of facts concerning them, so grouped as that any 
part of a group being perceived, the existence of the other 
facts included in it is foreseen. 

If, once more, we say that science is exact prevision, we 
still fail to establish the supposed difference. Not only do 
wo find that much of what we call science is not exact, 
and that some of it, as physiology, can never become exact ; 
but we find further, that many of the previsions constitu- 
ting the common stock alike of wise and ignorant, are ex- 
act. That an unsupported body will fall ; that a lighted candle 
will go out when immersed in water ; that ice will melt 
when thrown on the fire — these, and many like predictions 
relating to the familiar properties of things have as high a 
degree of accuracy as predictions are capable of. It is true 
that the results predicated are of a very general character ; 
but it is none the less trueafchat they are rigorously correct 
as far as they go : and this is all that is requisite to fulfil 
the definition. There is perfect accordance between the 
anticipated phenomena and the actual ones ; and no more 
than this can be said of the highest achievements of the 
sciences specially characterised as exact. 

Seeing thus that the assumed distinction between scien- 
tific knowledge and common knowledge is not logically 
justifiable ; and yet feeling, as we must, that however im- 
possible it may be to draw a line between them, the two 



118 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

are not practically identical ; there arises the question — ■ 
What is the relationship that exists between them ? A 
partial answer to this question may be drawn from the il- 
lustrations just given. On reconsidering them, it will be 
observed that those portions of ordinary knowledge which 
are identical in character with scientific knowledge, com- 
prehend only such combinations of phenomena as are direct- 
ly cognizable by the senses, and are of simple, invariable 
nature. That the smoke from a fire which she is lighting 
will ascend, and that the fire will presently boil water, are 
previsions which the servant-girl makes equally well with 
the most learned physicist ; they are equally certain, 
equally exact with his ; but they are previsions concerning 
phenomena in constant and direct relation — phenomena 
that follow visibly and immediately after their antecedents 
— phenomena of which the causation is neither remote nor 
obscure — phenomena which may be predicted by the sim- 
plest possible act of reasoning. 

If, now, we pass to the previsions constituting what is 
commonly known as science — that an eclipse of the moon 
will happen at a specified time ; and when a barometer is 
taken to the top of a mountain of known height, the mer- 
curial column will descend a stated number of inches ; that 
the poles of a galvanic battery immersed in water will give 
off, the one an inflammable and the other an inflaming gas, 
in definite ratio — we perceive that the relations involved 
are not of a kind habitually presented to our senses ; that 
they depend, some of them, upon special combinations of 
causes ; and that in some of them the connection between 
antecedents and consequents is established only by an ela- 
borate series of inferences. The broad distinction, there- 
fore, between the two orders of knowledge, is not in then 
nature, but in their remoteness from perception. 

If we regard the cases in their most general aspect, we 
see that the labourer, who, on hearing certain notes in the 



DEFINITION OF SCIENCE. 119 

adjacent hedge, can describe the particular form and col- 
ours of the bird making them ; and the astronomer, who, 
having calculated a transit of Venus, can delineate the black 
spot entering on the sun's disc, as it will appear through 
the telescope, at a specified hour ; do essentially the same 
thing Each knows that on fulfilling the requisite condi- 
tions, he shall have a preconceived impression — that after a 
definite series of actions will come a group of sensations of 
a foreknown kind. The difference, then, is not in the funda- 
mental character of the mental acts ; or in the correctness 
of the previsions accomplished by them ; but in the com- 
plexity of the processes required to achieve the previsions. 
Much of our commonest knowledge is, as far as it goes, rig- 
orously precise. Science does not increase this precision ; 
cannot transcend it. What then does it do ? It reduces 
other knowledge to the same degree of precision. That 
certainty which direct perception gives us respecting coex- 
istences and sequences of the simplest and most accessi- 
ble kind, science gives us respecting coexistences and se- 
quences, complex in their dependencies or inaccessible to 
immediate observation. In brief, regarded from this point 
of view, science may be called an extension of the percep- 
tions by means of reasoning. 

On further considering the matter, however, it will per- 
haps be felt that this definition does not express the whole 
fact — that inseparable as science may be from common 
knowledge, and completely as we may fill up the gap be- 
tween the simplest previsions of the child and the most re- 
condite ones of the natural philosopher, by interposing a 
series of previsions in which the complexity of reasoning 
involved is greater and greater, there is yet a difference 
between the two beyond that which is here described. And 
this is true. But the difference is still not such as enable 1 ! 
us to draw the assumed line of demarcation. It is a differ- 
ence not between common knowledge and scientific knowl* 
7 



120 THE GENESIS OE SCIENCE. 

edge ; but between the successive phases of science itself, 
or knowledge itself — whichever we choose to call it. In 
its earlier phases science attains only to certainty of fore- 
knowledge ; in its later phases it further attains to com- 
pleteness. We begin by discovering a relation : we end 
by discovering the relation. Our first achievement is to 
foretell the kind of phenomenon which will occur under 
specific conditions : our last achievement is to foretell not 
only the kind but the amount. . Or, to reduce the proposi 
tion to its most definite form — undeveloped science is qual- 
itative prevision : developed science is quantitative previ 
sion. 

This will at once be perceived to express the remaining 
distinction between the lower and the higher stages of posi- 
tive knowledge. The prediction that a piece of lead will 
take more force to lift it than a piece of wood of equal size, 
exhibits certainty, but not completeness, of foresight. The 
kind of effect in which the one body will exceed the other 
is foreseen ; but not the amount by which it will exceed. 
There is qualitative prevision only. On the other hand, the 
prediction that at a stated time two particular planets will 
be in conjunction ; that by means of a lever having arms in 
a given ratio, a known force will raise just so many pounds ; 
that to decompose a specified quantity of sulphate of iron 
by carbonate of soda will require so many grains — these 
predictions exhibit foreknowledge, not only of the nature 
of the effects to be produced, but of the magnitude, either 
of the effects themselves, of the agencies producing them, 
or of the distance in time or space at which they will be 
produced. There is not only qualitative but quantitative 
prevision. 

And this is the unexpressed difference which leads us 
to consider certain orders of knowledge as especially scien- 
tific when contrasted with knowledge in general. Are the 
phenomena measurable f is the test which we unconsciously 



SCIENCE ADVANCES TO MEASUREMENT. 121 

employ. Space is measurable: hence Geometry. Force 
and space are measurable : hence Statics. Time, force, and 
space are measurable : hence Dynamics. The invention of 
the barometer enabled men to extend the principles of me- 
chanics to the atmosphere ; and Aerostatics existed. When 
a thermometer was devised there arose a science of heat, 
which was before impossible. Such of our sensations as we 
have not yet found modes of measuring do not originate 
sciences. We have no science of smells ; nor have we one 
of tastes. "We have a science of the relations of sounds 
differing in pitch, because we have discovered a way to 
measure them ; but we have no science of sounds in respect 
to their loudness or their timbre, because we have got no 
measures of loudness and timbre. 

Obviously it is this- reduction of the sensible phenomena 
it represents, to relations of magnitude, which gives to any 
division of knowledge its especially scientific character. 
Originally men's knowledge of weights and forces was in 
the same condition as their knowledge of smells and tastes 
is now — a knowledge not extending beyond that given by 
the unaided sensations ; and it remained so until weighing 
instruments and dynamometers were invented. Before 
there were hour-glasses and clepsydras, most phenomena 
could be estimated as to their durations and intervals, with 
no greater precision than degrees of hardness can be esti- 
mated by the fingers. Until a thermometric scale was con- 
trived, men's judgments respecting relative amounts of 
heat stood on the same footing with their present judg- 
ments respecting relative amounts of sound. And as in 
these initial stages, with no aids to observation, only the 
roughest comparisons of cases could be made, and only the 
most marked differences perceived ; it is obvious that only 
the most simple laws of dependence could be ascertained — 
only those laws which being uncomplicated with other*, 
and not disturbed in their manifestations, required no nice- 



122 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

ties of observation to disentaugle them. Whence it ap- 
pears not only that in proportion as knowledge becomes 
quantitative do its previsions become complete as well as 
certain, but that until its assumption of a quantitative char- 
acter it is necessarily confined to the most elementary rela- 
tions. 

Moreover it is to be remarked that while, on the one 
hand, we can discover the laws of the greater proportion 
of phenomena only by investigating them quantitatively ; 
on the other hand we can extend the range of our quanti- 
tative previsions only as fast as we detect the laws of the 
results we predict. For clearly the ability to specify the 
magnitude of a result inaccessible to direct measurement, 
implies knowledge of its mode of dependence on something 
which can be measured — implies that we know the particu- 
lar fact dealt with to be an instance of some more general 
fact. Thus the extent to which our quantitative previsions 
have been carried in any direction, indicates the depth to 
which our knowledge reaches in that direction. And here, 
as another aspect of the same fact, we may further observe 
that as w T e pass from qualitative to quantitative prevision, 
we pass from inductive science to deductive science. Sci- 
ence while purely inductive is purely qualitative : when in- 
accurately quantitative it usually consists of part induction, 
part deduction: and it becomes accurately quantitative only 
when wholly deductive. We do not mean that the deduct- 
ive and the quantitative are coextensive ; for there is mani- 
festly much deduction that is qualitative only. We mean 
that all quantitative prevision is reached deductively ; and 
that induction can achieve only qualitative prevision. 

Still, however, it must not be supposed that these dis- 
tinctions enable us to separate ordinary knowledge from 
science ; much as they seem to do so. While they show in 
what consists the broad contrast between the extreme forms 
of the two, they yet lead us to recognise their essential iden- 



SCIENCE AN OUTGROWTH OF COMMON KNOWLEDGE. 123 

tity ; and once more prove the difference to be one of de- 
•gree only. For, on the one hand, the commonest positive 
knowledge is to some extent quantitative ; seeing that the 
amount of the foreseen result is knoAvn within certain wide 
limits. And, on the other hand, the highest quantitative 
prevision does not reach the exact truth, but only a very 
near approximation to it. Without clocks the savage 
knows that the day is longer in the summer than in the 
winter ; without scales he knows that stone is heavier than 
flesh : that is, he can foresee respecting certain results that 
their amounts will exceed these, and be less than those — he 
knows about what they will be. And, with his most deli- 
cate instruments and most elaborate calculations, all that 
the man of science can do, is to reduce the difference be- 
tween the foreseen and the actual results to an unimportant 
quantity. 

Moreover, it must be borne in mind not only that all 
the sciences are qualitative in their first stages, — not only 
that some of them, as Chemistry, have but recently reached 
the quantitative stage — but that the most advanced sciences 
have attained to their present power of determining quan- 
tities not present to the senses, or not directly measurable, 
by a slow process of improvement extending through thou- 
sands of years. So that science and the knowledge of the 
uncultured are alike in the nature of their previsions, widely 
as they differ in range ; they possess a common imperfec- 
tion, though this is immensely greater in the last than in 
the first ; and the transition from the one to the other has 
been through a series of steps by which the imperfection 
has been rendered continually less, and the range continu- 
ally wider. 

These facts, that science and the positive knowledge of 
the uncultured cannot be separated in nature, and that the 
one is but a perfected and extended form of the other, 
must necessarily underlie the whole theory of science, its 



L24 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

progress, and the relations of its parts to each other. 
There must he serious incompleteness in any history of the - 
sciences, which, leaving out of view the first steps of their 
genesis, commences with them only when they assume defi- 
nite forms. There must he grave defects, if not a general 
untruth, in a philosophy of the sciences considered in their 
interdependence and development, which neglects the in- 
quiry how they came to he distinct sciences, and how they 
were severally evolved out of the chaos of primitive ideas. 

Not only a direct consideration of the matter, hut all 
analogy, goes to show that in the earlier and simpler stages 
must be sought the key to all subsequent intricacies. The 
time was when the anatomy and physiology of the human 
being were studied by themselves — when the adult man 
was analyzed and the relations of parts and of functions 
investigated, without reference either to the relations ex- 
hibited in the embryo or to the homologous relations exist- 
ing in other creatures. JSTow, however, it has become 
manifest that no true conceptions, no true generalizations, 
are possible under such conditions. Anatomists and phys- 
iologists now find that the real natures of organs and tis- 
sues can be ascertained only by tracing their early evolu- 
tion ; and that the affinities between existing genera can 
be satisfactorily made out only by examining the fossil gen- 
era to which they are allied. • "Well, is it not clear that the 
like must be true concerning all things that undergo devel- 
opment ? Is not science a growth ? Has not science, too, 
its embryology ? And must not the neglect of its embry- 
ology lead to a misunderstanding of the principles of its 
evolution and of its existing organization ? 

There are a priori reasons, therefore, for doubting the 
truth of all philosophies of the sciences which tacitly pro- 
ceed upon the common notion that scientific knowledge 
and ordinary knowledge are separate ; instead of com- 
mencing, as they should, by affiliating the one upon the 



oken's classification of the sciences. 125 

other, and showing how it gradually came to be distin- 
guishable from the other. We may expect to find theii 
generalizations essentially artificial ; and we shall not be 
deceived. Some illustrations of this may here be fitly in- 
troduced, by way of preliminary to a brief sketch of the 
genesis of science from the point of view indicated. And 
we cannot more readily find such illustrations than by 
glancing at a few of the various classifications of the sci- 
ences that have from time to time been proposed. To con- 
sider all of them would take too much space : we must 
content ourselves with some of .the latest. 

Commencing with those which may be soonest disposed 
of, let us notice first the arrangement propounded by Oken 
An abstract of it runs thus : — 

Part I. Mathesis. — Pneumatogeny : Primary Art, Primary 
Consciousness, God, Primary Eest, Time, Polarity, Mo- 
tion, Man, Space, Point, Line, Surface, Globe, Potation. 
— Hylogeny : Gravity, Matter, Ether, Heavenly Bodies, 
Light, Heat, Fire. 

(He explains that Mathesis is the doctrine of the whole ; 
Pneumatogeny being the doctrine of immaterial totalities, and 
Hylogeny that of material totalities.) 

Part II. Ontology. — Cosmogeny : Eest, Centre, Motion, Line, 
Planets, Form, Planetary System, Comets. — StocMo- 
geny : Condensation, Simple Matter, Elements, Air, 
"Water, Earth. — Stochiology : Functions of the Elements, 
&c. &c. — Kingdoms of Nature : Individuals. 

(He says in explanation that " Ontology teaches us the 
phenomena of matter. The first of these are the heavenly 
bodies comprehended by Cosmogeny. These divide into ele- 
ments — Stoclviogeny. The earth element divides into miner- 
als— Mineralogy. These unite into one collective body — 
Geogeny. The whole in singulars is the living, or Organic., 



126 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

which again divides into plants and animals. Biology, there 
fore, divides into Organogeny, PhytosopTiy, Zoosophy.") 

First Kingdom. — Minerals. Mineralogy, Geology. 
Part III. Biology. — Organosophy, Phytogeny, Phyto-physiology, 
Phytology, Zoogeny, Physiology, Zoology, Psychology? 

A glance over this confused scheme shows that it is an 
attempt to classify knowledge, not after the order in which 
it has been, or may he, built up in the human conscious- 
ness ; but after an assumed order of creation. It is a 
pseudo-scientific cosmogony, akin to those which men have 
enunciated from the earliest times downwards ; and only a 
little more respectable. As such it will not be thought 
worthy of much consideration by those who, like ourselves, 
hold that experience is the sole origin of knowledge. Oth- 
erwise, it might have been needful to dwell on the incon- 
gruities of the arrangements — to ask how motion can be 
treated of before space ? how there can be rotation with- 
out matter to rotate ? how polarity can be dealt with with- 
out involving points and lines ? But it will serve our pres- 
ent purpose just to point out a few of the extreme absurdi- 
ties resulting from the doctrine which Oken seems to hold 
in common with Hegel, that " to philosophize on Nature is 
to re-think the great thought of Creation." Here is a sam- 
ple : — 

" Mathematics is the universal science ; so also is Phys- 
io-philosophy, although it is only a part, or rather but a 
condition of the universe ; both are one, or mutually con- 
gruent. 

" Mathematics i^, however, a science of mere forms 
without substance. Physio-philosophy is, therefore, mathe- 
matics endowed with substance.'''' 

From the English point of view it is sufficiently amus- 
ing to find such a dogma not only gravely stated, but 
stated as an unquestionable truth. Here we see the expo- 



ESTIMATE OF OKEN's SCHEME. 127 

riences of quantitative relations which men have gathered 
from surrounding bodies and generalized (experiences 
which had been scarcely at all generalized at the beginning 
of the historic period) — we find these generalized expe- 
riences, these intellectual abstractions, elevated into con 
crete actualities, projected back into Nature, and consid- 
ered as the internal frame-work of things — the skeleton by 
which matter is sustained. But this new form of the old 
realism, is by no means the most startling of the physio- 
philosophic principles. We presently read that, 

" The highest mathematical idea, or the fundamental 
principle of all mathematics is the zero = 0." * * * 

" Zero is in itself nothing. Mathematics is based upon 
nothing, and, consequently, arises out of nothing. 

" Out of nothing, therefore, it is possible for something 
to arise ; for mathematics, consisting of propositions, is 
something, in relation to 0." 

By such " consequently? " and "therefores" it is, that 
men philosophize when they " re-think the great thought 
of creation." By dogmas that pretend to be reasons, noth- 
ing is made to generate mathematics ; and by clothing 
mathematics with matter, we have the universe ! If now 
we deny, as we do deny, that the highest mathematical idea 
is the zero ; — if, on the other hand, we assert, as we do 
assert, that the fundamental idea underlying all mathemat- 
ics, is that of equality ; the whole of Oken's cosmogony 
disappears. And here, indeed, we may see illustrated, the 
distinctive peculiarity of the German method of procedure 
in these matters — the bastard A priori method, as it may 
be termed. The legitimate a priori method sets out with 
propositions of which the negation is inconceivable ; the d 
priori method as illegitimately applied, sets out either with 
propositions of which the negation is not inconceivable, or 
with propositions like Oken's, of which the affirmation ia 
inconceivable. 



128 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

It is needless to proceed further with the analysis ; else 
might we detail the steps by which Oken arrives at the 
conclusions that " the planets are coagulated colours, for 
they are coagulated light ; that the sphere is the expanded 
nothing ; " that gravity is " a weighty nothing, a heavy es- 
sence, striving towards a centre ; " thai " the earth is the 
identical, water the indifferent, air the different ; or the 
first the centre, the second the radius, the last the peri« 
phery of the general globe or of fire." To comment on 
them would be nearly as absurd as are the propositions 
themselves. Let us pass on to another of the German sys- 
tems of knowledge — that of Hegel. 

The simple fact that Hegel puts Jacob Bcehme on a par 
with Bacon, suffices alone to show that his stand-point is 
far remote from the one usually regarded as scientific : so 
far remote, indeed, that it is not easy to find any common 
basis on which to found a criticism. Those who hold that 
the mind is moulded into conformity with surrounding 
things by the agency of surrounding things, are necessarily 
at a loss how to deal with those, who, like Schelling and 
Hegel, assert that surrounding things are solidified mind — 
that Nature is " petrified intelligence." However, let us 
briefly glance at Hegel's classification. He divides philoso- 
phy into three parts : — 

1. Logic, or the science of the idea in itself, the pure 
idea. 

2. Tlie Philosophy of Nature, or the science of the idea 
considered under its other form — of the idea as Nature. 

3. The Philosophy of the Mind, or the science of the 
idea in its return to itself. 

Of these, the second is divided into the natural sciences, 
commonly so called ; so that in its more detailed form the 
series runs thus : — Logic, Mechanics, Physics, Organic Phy- 
sioa, Psychology. 

Now, if we believe with Hegel, first, that thought is the 



hegel's scheme of knowledge, 129 

terue essence of man ; second, that thought is the essence of 
the world ; and tbat, therefore, there is nothing but thought; 
his classification, beginning with the science of pure thought, 
may be acceptable. But otherwise, it is an obvious objec- 
tion to his arrangement, that thought implies things thought 
of — that there can be no logical forms without the substance 
of experience — that the science of ideas and the science of 
things must have a simultaneous origin. Hegel, however, 
anticipates this objection, and, in his obstinate idealism, re- 
plies, that the contrary is true ; that all contained in the 
forms, to become something, requires to be thought : and 
that logical forms are the foundations of all things. 

It is not surprising that, starting from such premises, and 
reasoning after this fashion, Hegel finds his way to strange 
conclusions. Out of space and time he proceeds to build up 
motion, matter, repulsion, attraction, weight, and inertia. 
He then goes on to logically evolve the solar system. In 
doing this he widely diverges from the Newtonian theory ; 
reaches by syllogism the conviction that the planets are the 
most perfect celestial bodies ; and, not being able to bring 
the stars within his theory, says that they are mere formal 
existences and not living matter, and that as compared with 
the solar system they are as little admirable as a cutaneous 
eruption or a swarm of flies.* 

Results so outrageous might be left as self-disproved, 
were it not that speculators of this class are not alarmed by 
any amount of incongruity with established beliefs. The 
only efficient mode of treating systems like this of Hegel, is 
to show that they are self-destructive — that by their first 
steps they ignore that authority on which all their subse- 
quent steps depend. If Hegel professes, as he manifestly 
does, to develop his scheme by reasoning — if he presents 

* It is somewhat curious that the author of " The Plurality of Worlds," 
with quite other aims, should have persuaded himself into similar conclu 
Biona. 



130 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

successive inferences as necessarily following from certain 
premises ; he implies the postulate that a belief which ne- 
cessarily follows after certain antecedents is a true belief: 
and, did an opponent reply to one of his inferences, that, 
though it was impossible to think the opposite, yet the 
opposite was true, he would consider the reply irrational 
The procedure, however, which he would thus condemn as 
destructive of all thinking whatever, is just the procedure 
exhibited in the enunciation of his own first principles. 

Mankind find themselves unable to conceive that there 
can be thought without things thought of. Hegel, how- 
ever, asserts that there can be thought without things 
thought of. That ultimate test of a true proposition — the 
inability of the human mind to conceive the negation of it 
• — which in all other cases he considers valid, he considers 
invalid where it suits his convenience to do so ; and yet at 
the same time denies the right of an opponent to follow his 
example. If it is competent for him to posit dogmas, which 
are the direct negations of what human consciousness recog- 
nises; then is it also competent for his antagonists to stop 
him at every step in his argument by saying, that though 
the particular inference he is drawing seems to his mind, 
and to all minds, necessarily to follow from the premises, 
yet it is not true, but the contrary inference is true. Or, 
to state the dilemma in another form : — If he sets out with 
inconceivable propositions, then may he with equal propri- 
ety make all his succeeding propositions inconceivable ones 
— may at every step throughout his reasoning draw exactly 
the opposite conclusion to that which seems involved. 

Hegel's mode of procedure being thus essentially sui- 
cidal, the Hegelian classification which depends upon 
it, falls to the ground. Let us consider next that of 
M. Comte. 

As all his readers must admit, M. Comte presents us 
with a scheme of the sciences which, unlike the foregoing 



HIGHER CLAIMS OF M. COMTE. 131 

ones, demands respectful consideration. Widely as we 
differ from him, we cheerfully bear witness to the largeness 
of his views, the clearness of his reasoning, and the value 
of his speculations as contributing to intellectual progress. 
Did we believe a serial arrangement of the sciences to be 
possible, that of M. Comte would certainly be the one we 
should adopt. His fundamental propositions are thor- 
oughly intelligible ; and if not true, have a great semblance 
of truth. His successive steps are logically co-ordinated ; 
and he supports his conclusions by a considerable amount of 
evidence — evidence which, so long as it is not critically exam- 
ined, or not met by counter evidence, seems to substantiate 
his positions. But it only needs to assume that antagon- 
istic attitude which ought to be assumed towards new 
doctrines, in the belief that, if true, they will prosper by 
conquering objectors — it needs but to test his leading 
doctrines either by other facts than those he cites, or by 
his own facts differently applied, to at once show that they 
will not stand. "We will proceed thus to deal with the 
general principle on which he bases his hierarchy of the 
sciences. 

In the second chapter of his Cours de Philosophie Posi- 
tive, M. Comte says : — " Our problem is, then, to find 
the one rational order, amongst a host of possible sys- 
tems." ..." This order is determined by the degree 
of simplicity, or, what comes to the same thing, of general- 
ity of their phenomena." And the arrangement he de- 
duces runs thus: Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics, Chem- 
istry, Physiology, Social Physics. This he asserts to be 
" the true filiation of the sciences." He asserts further, 
that the principle of progression from a greater to a less 
degree of generality, " which gives this order to the whole 
body of science, arranges the parts of each science." And, 
finally, he asserts that the gradations thus established a 
'priori among the sciences, and the parts of each science, "is 



L32 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

in essential conformity with the order which has sponta 
neously taken place among the branches of natural philoso 
phy ; " or, in other words — corresponds with the order of 
historic development. 

Let us compare these assertions with the facts. That 
there may be perfect fairness, let us make no choice, but 
take as the field for our comparison, the succeeding section 
treating of the first science — Mathematics ; and let us use 
none but M. Comte's own facts, and his own admissions. 
Confining ourselves to this one science, of course our com- 
parisons must be between its several parts. M. Comte says, 
that the parts of each science must be arranged in the 
order of their decreasing generality ; and that this older 
of decreasing generality agrees with the order of historic 
development. Our inquiry must be, then, whether the his- 
tory of mathematics confirms this statement. 

Carrying out his principle, M. Comte divides Mathe- 
matics into " Abstract Mathematics, or the Calculus (tak- 
ing the word in its most extended sense) and Concrete 
Mathematics, which is composed of General Geometry and 
of Rational Mechanics.'' The subject-matter of the first of 
these is number / the subject-matter of the second includes 
space, time, motion, force. The one possesses the highest 
possible degree of generality ; for all things whatever 
admit of enumeration. The others are less general ; see- 
ing that there are endless phenomena that are not cogniza- 
ble either by general geometry or rational mechanics. In 
conformity with the alleged law, therefore, the evolution 
of the calculus must throughout have preceded the evolu- 
tion of the concrete sub-sciences. Now somewhat awk- 
wardly for him, the first remark M. Comte makes bearing 
npon this point is, that " from an historical point of view, 
mathematical analysis appears to have risen out, of the con- 
templation of geometrical and mechanical facts." True, 
be goes on to say that, " it is not the less independent of 



COMTE 'S THEOKY OF ITS EVOLUTION. 133 

these sciences logically speaking ; " for that " analytical 
ideas are, above all others, universal, abstract, and simple • 
and geometrical conceptions are necessarily founded on 
them." 

We will not take advantage of this last passage to 
charge M. Comte with teaching, after the fashion of Hegel, 
that there can be thought without things thought of. We 
are content simply to compare the two assertions, that 
analysis arose out of the contemplation of geometrical and 
mechanical facts, and that geometrical conceptions are 
founded upon analytical ones. Literally interpreted they 
exactly cancel each other. Interpreted, however, in a 
liberal sense, they imply, what we believe to be de- 
monstrable, that the two had a simultaneous origin. The 
passage is either nonsense, or it is an admission that 
abstract and concrete mathematics are coeval. Thus, 
at the very first step, the alleged congruity between the 
order of generality and the order of evolution, does not 
hold good. 

But may it not be that though abstract and concrete 
mathematics took their rise at the same time, the one 
afterwards developed more rapidly than the other ; and 
has ever since remained in advance of it ? No : and again 
we call M. Comte himself as witness. Fortunately for his 
argument he has said nothing respecting the early stages 
of the concrete and abstract divisions after their diver- 
gence from a common root ; otherwise the advent of 
Algebra long after the Greek geometry had reached a high 
development, would have been an inconvenient fact for 
him to deal with. But passing over this, and limiting 
ourselves to his own statements, we find, at the opening of 
the next chapter, the admission, that "the historical de- 
velopment of the abstract portion of mathematical science 
has, since the time of Descartes, been for the most part 
determined by that of the concrete." Further on we read 



134 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

respecting algebraic functions that " most functions were 
■ concrete in their origin — even those which are at present 
the most purely abstract ; and the ancients discovered 
only through geometrical definitions elementary algebraic 
properties of functions to which a numerical value was not 
attached till long afterwards, rendering abstract to ua 
what was concrete to the old geometers." How do these 
statements tally with his doctrine ? Again, having divided 
the calculus into algebraic and arithmetical, M. Comte 
admits, as perforce he must, that the algebraic is more 
general than the arithmetical ; yet he will not say that 
algebra preceded arithmetic in point of time. And again, 
having divided the calculus of functions into the calculus 
of direct functions (common algebra) and the calculus of 
indirect functions (transcendental analysis), he is obliged 
to speak of this last as possessing a higher generality than 
the first ; yet it is far more modern. Indeed, by implica- 
tion, M. Comte himself confesses this incongruity ; for he 
says : — " It might seem that the transcendental analysis 
ought to be studied before the ordinary, as it provides the 
equations which the other has to resolve ; but though the 
transcendental is logically independent of the ordinary, it 
is best to follow the usual method of study, taking the 
ordinary first." In all these cases, then, as well as at the 
close of the section where he predicts that mathematicians 
will in time " create procedures of a wider generality '," M. 
Comte makes admissions that are diametrically opposed to 
the alleged law. 

In the succeeding chapters treating of the concrete de- 
partment of mathematics, we find similar contradictions. 
M. Comte himself names- the geometry of the ancients spe- 
cial geometry, and that of moderns the general geometiy. 
He admits that while " the ancients studied geometry with 
reference to the bodies under notice, or specially ; the 
moderns study it with reference to the phenomena to be 



OBJECTIONS TO COMTE's THEORY. 135 

considered, or generally." He admits that while " the an 
cients extracted all they could out of one line or surface 
before passing to another," " the moderns, since Descartes, 
employ themselves on questions which relate to any figure 
whatever." These facts are the reverse of what, according 
to his theory, they should be. So, too, in mechanics. Be- 
fore dividing it into statics and dynamics, M. Comte treats 
of the three laws of motion, and is obliged to do so ; for 
statics, the more general of the two divisions, though it 
does not involve motion, is impossible as a science until the 
laws of motion are ascertained. Yet the laws of motion 
pertain to dynamics, the more special of the divisions. 
Further on he points out that after Archimedes, who dis- 
covered the law of equilibrium of the lever, statics made 
no progress until the establishment of dynamics enabled us 
to seek " the conditions of equilibrium through the laws of 
the composition of forces." And he adds — " At this day 
this is the method universally employed. At the first glance 
it does not appear the most rational — dynamics being more 
complicated than statics, and precedence being natural to the 
simpler. It would, in fact, be more philosophical to refer 
dynamics to statics, as has since been done. " Sundry dis- 
coveries are afterwards detailed, showing how completely 
the development of statics has been achieved by consider- 
ing its problems dynamically ; and before the close of the 
section M. Comte remarks that " before hydrostatics could 
be comprehended under statics, it was necessary that the 
abstract theory of equilibrium should be made so general 
as to apply directly to fluids as well as solids. This was ac- 
complished when Lagrange supplied, as the basis of the 
whole of rational mechanics, the single principle of virtual 
velocities." In which statement we have two facts directly 
at variance with M. Comte's doctrine ; — first, that the sim- 
pler science, statics, reached its present development only 
by the aid of the principle of virtual velocities, which be- 



136 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

longs to the more complex science, dynamics ; and that this 
" single principle " underlying all rational mechanics — this 
most general form which includes alike the relations of stat- 
ical, hydrostatical, and dynamical forces — was reached so 
late as the time of Lagrange. 

Thus it is not true that the historical succession of the 
divisions of mathematics has corresponded with the order 
of decreasing generality. It is not true that abstract math- 
ematics was evolved antecedently to, and independently 
of concrete mathematics. It is not true that of the sub- 
divisions of abstract mathematics, the more general came 
before the more special. And it is not true that concrete 
mathematics, in either of its two sections, began with the 
most abstract and advanced to the less abstract truths. 

It may be well to mention, parenthetically, that in de- 
fending his alleged law of progression from the general to 
the special, M. Comte somewhere comments upon the two 
meanings of the word general, and the resulting liability to 
confusion. Without now discussing whether the asserted 
distinction can be maintained in other cases, it is manifest 
that it does not exist here. In sundry of the instances 
above quoted, the endeavors made by M. Comte himself to 
disguise, or to explain away, the precedence of the special 
over the general, clearly indicate that the generality spoken 
of, is of the kind meant by his formula. And it needs but 
a brief consideration of the matter to show that, even did 
he attempt it, he could not distinguish this generality, which, 
as above proved, frequently comes last, from the generality 
which he says always comes first. For what is the nature 
of that mental process by which objects, dimensions, 
weights, times, and the rest, are found capable of having 
their relations expressed numerically ? It is the formation 
of certain abstract conceptions of unity, duality and multi- 
plicity, which are applicable to all things alike. It is the 
invention of general symbols serving to express the numer- 



DIVISIONS OF MATHEMATICS, HOW RELATED. 137 

Seal relations of entities, whatever be their special charac- 
ters. And what is the nature of the mental process by 
which numbers are found capable of having their relations 
expressed algebraically ? It is just the same. It is the for- 
mation of certain abstract conceptions of numerical Amo- 
tions which are the same whatever be the magnitudes of 
the numbers. It is the invention of general symbols serv- 
ing to express the relations between numbers, as numbers 
express the relations between things. And transcendental 
analysis stands to algebra in the same position that algebra 
stands in to arithmetic. 

To briefly illustrate their respective powers ; — arithme- 
tic can express in one formula the value of a particular 
tangent to & particular curve ; algebra can express in one 
formula the values of all tangents to a particular curve ; 
transcendental analysis can express in one formula the val- 
ues of all tangents to all curves. Just as arithmetic deals 
with the common properties of lines, areas, bulks, forces, 
periods ; so does algebra deal with the common properties 
of the numbers which arithmetic presents ; so does tran- 
scendental analysis deal with the common properties of the 
equations exhibited by algebra. Thus, the generality of 
the higher branches of the calculus, when compared with 
the lower, is the same kind of generality as that of the lower 
branches when compared with geometry or mechanics. 
And on examination it will be found that the like relation 
exists in the various other cases above given. 

Having shown that M. Comte's alleged law of progres- 
sion does not hold among the several parts of the same 
science, let us see how it agrees with the facts when applied 
to separate sciences. " Astronomy," says M. Comte, at the 
opening of Book III., " was a positive science, in its geo- 
metrical aspect, from the earliest days of the school of Alex- 
andria ; but Physics, which we are now to consider, had no 
positive character at all till Galileo made his great discov- 



138 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

eries on the fall of heavy bodies." On this, our comment is 
simply that it is a misrepresentation based upon an arbi- 
trary misuse of words — a mere verbal artifice. By choosing 
to exclude from terrestrial physics those laws of magnitude, 
motion, and position, which he includes in celestial physics, 
M. Comte makes it appear that the one owes nothing to 
the other. Not only is this altogether unwarrantable, but 
it is radically inconsistent with his own scheme of divisions. 
At the outset he says — and as the point is important we 
quote from the original — " Pour la physique inorganique 
nous voyons d'abord, en nous conformant toujours a l'ordre 
de generalite et de dependance des phenomenes, quelle doit 
etre partagee en deux sections distinctes, suivant qu'elle 
considere les phenomenes generaux de l'univers, ou, en par- 
ticulier, ceux que presentent les corps terrestres. D'oii la 
physique celeste, ou l'astronomie, soit geometrique, soit 
mechanique ; et la physique terrestre." 

Here then we have inorganic physics clearly divided 
into celestial physics and terrestrial physics — the pheno- 
mena presented by the universe, and the phenomena pre- 
sented by earthly bodies. If now celestial bodies and ter- 
restrial bodies exhibit sundry leading phenomena in com- 
mon, as they do, how can the generalization of these com- 
mon phenomena be considered as pertaining to the one class 
rather than to the other ? If inorganic physics includes 
geometry (which M. Comte has made it do by comprehend- 
ing geometrical astronomy in its sub-section — celestial phy- 
sics) ; and if its sub-section — terrestrial physics, treats of 
things having geometrical properties ; how can the laws of 
geometrical relations be excluded from terrestrial physics? 
Clearly if celestial physics includes the geometry of ob- 
jects in the heavens, terrestrial physics includes the geometry 
of objects on the earth. And if terrestrial physics includes 
terrestrial geometry, while celestial physics includes celestial 
geometry, then the geometrical part of terrestrial physics 



TERRESTRIAL MECHANICS PRECEDES CELESTIAL. 139 

precedes the geometrical part of celestial physics ; see- 
ing that geometry gained its first ideas from surrounding 
objects. Until men had learnt geometrical relations from 
bodies on the earth, it was impossible for them to under- 
stand the geometrical relations of bodies in the heavens. 

So, too, with celestial mechanics, which had terrestrial 
mechanics for its parent. The very conception of force, 
which underlies the whole of mechanical astronomy, is bor= 
rowed from our earthly experiences ; and the leading laws 
of mechanical action as exhibited in scales, levers, projec- 
tiles, &c, had to be ascertained before the dynamics of the 
solar system could be entered upon. What were the laws 
made use of by Newton in working out his grand discovery? 
The law of falling bodies disclosed by Galileo ; that of the 
composition of forces also disclosed by Galileo ; and that 
of centrifugal force found out by Huyghens — all of them 
generalizations of terrestrial physics. Yet, with facts like 
these before him, M. Comte places astronomy before phy- 
sics in order of evolution ! He does not compare the geo- 
metrical parts of the two together, and the mechanical 
parts of the two together ; for this would by no means 
suit his hypothesis. But he compares the geometrical part 
of the one with the mechanical part of the other, and so 
gives a semblance of truth to his position. He is led away 
by a verbal delusion. Had he confined his attention to the 
things and disregarded the words, he would have seen that 
before mankind scientifically co-ordinated any one class of 
•phenomena displayed in the heavens, they had previously 
co-ordinated a parallel class of phenomena displayed upon 
the surface of the earth. 

Were it needful we could fill a score pages with the in- 
congruities of M. Comte's scheme. But the foregoing sam- 
ples will suffice. So far is his law of evolution of the 
sciences from being tenable, that, by following his exam- 
ple, and arbitrarily ignoring one class of facts, it would be 



1.40 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

possible to present, with great plausibility, just the opposite 
generalization to that which he enunciates. While he as- 
serts that the rational order of the sciences, like the ordei 
of their historic development, " is determined by the de- 
gree of simplicity, or, what comes to the same thing, of 
generality of their phenomena ; " it might contrariwise be 
asserted, that, commencing with the complex and the spe- 
cial, mankind have progressed step by step to a knowledge 
of greater simplicity and wider generality. So much evi- 
dence is there of this as to have drawn from Whewell, in 
his History of the Inductive /Scie?ices, the general remark 
that " the reader has already seen repeatedly in the course 
of this history, complex and derivative principles present- 
ing themselves to men's minds before simple and elemen- 
tary ones." 

Even from M. Comte's own work, numerous facts, ad 
missions, and arguments, might be picked out, tending to 
show this. We have already quoted his words in proof 
that both abstract and concrete mathematics have pro- 
gressed towards a higher degree of generality, and that he 
looks forward to a higher generality still. Just to strength- 
en this adverse hypothesis, let us take a farther instance. 
From the particular case of the scales, the law of equilibri- 
um of which was familiar to the earliest nations known, Ar- 
chimedes advanced to the more general case of the unequal 
lever with unequal weights; the law of equilibrium of 
which includes that of the scales. By the help of Galileo's 
discovery concerning the composition of forces, D'Alembert 
%i established, for the first time, the equations of equilibrium 
of any system of forces applied to the different points of a 
solid body " — equations which include all cases of levers 
and an infinity of cases besides. Clearly this is progress 
towards a higher generality — towards a knowledge more 
independent of special circumstances — towards a study of 
phenomena " the most disengaged from the incidents of 



TWOFOLD PROGRESS OP SCIENCE. 141 

particular cases ; " which is M. Comte's definition of " the 
most simple phenomena." Does it not indeed follow from 
the familiarly admitted fact, that mental advance is from 
the concrete to the abstract, from the particular to the gen- 
eral, that the universal and therefore most simple truths are 
the last to be discovered ? Is not the government of the 
solar system by a force varying inversely as the square of 
the distance, a simpler conception than any that preceded 
it ? Should we ever succeed in reducing all orders of phe- 
nomena to some single law — say of atomic action, as M. 
Comte suggests — must not that law answer to his test of 
being independent of all others, and therefore most simple ? 
And would not such a law generalize the phenomena of 
gravity, cohesion, atomic affinity, and electric repulsion, just 
as the laws of number generalize the quantitative phenom- 
ena of space, time and force ? 

The possibility of saying so much in support of an hypo- 
thesis the very reverse of M. Comte's, at once proves that 
his generalization is only a half-truth. The fact is, that 
neither proposition is correct by itself; and the actuality is 
expressed only by putting the two together. The progress 
of science is duplex : it is at once from the special to the 
general, and from the general to the special : it is analytical 
and synthetical at the same time. 

M. Comte himself observes that the evolution of science 
has been accomplished by the division of labour; bat he 
quite misstates the mode in which this division of labour 
has operated. As he describes it, it has simply been an ar- 
rangement of phenomena into classes, and the study of each 
class by itself. He does not recognise the constant effect 
of progress in each class upon all other classes ; but only on 
the class succeeding it in his hierarchical scale. Or if he 
occasionally admits collateral influences and intercommuni- 
cations, he does it so grudgingly, and so quickly puts the 
admissions out of sight and forgets them, as to leave the 



142 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

impression that, with but trifling exceptions, the sciences 
aid each other only in the order of their alleged succession. 
The fact is, however, that the division of labour in science, 
like the division of labour in society, and like the " physio- 
logical division of labour " in individual organisms, has been 
not only a specialization of functions, but a continuous help- 
ing of each division by all the others, and of all by each. 
Every particular class of inquirers has, as it were, secreted 
its own particular order of truths from the general mass of 
material which observation accumulates; and all other 
classes of inquirers have made use of these truths as fast 
as they were elaborated, with the effect of enabling them 
the better to elaborate each its own order of truths. 

It was thus in sundry of the cases we have quoted as at 
variance with M. Comte's doctrine. It was thus with the 
application of Huyghens's optical discovery to astronomical 
observation by Galileo. It was thus with the application 
of the isochronism of the pendulum to the making of in- 
struments for measuring intervals, astronomical and other. 
It was thus when the discovery that the refraction and dis- 
persion of light did not follow the same law of variation, 
affected both astronomy and physiology by giving us achro- 
matic telescopes and microscopes. It was thus when Brad- 
ley's discovery of the aberration of light enabled him to 
make the first step towards ascertaining the motions of the 
stars. It was thus when Cavendish's torsion-balance ex- 
periment determined the specific gravity of the earth, and 
so gave a datum for calculating the specific gravities of the 
sun and planets. It was thus when tables of atmospheric 
refraction enabled observers to write down the real places 
of the heavenly bodies instead of their apparent places. It 
w^as thus when the discovery of the different expansibilities 
of metals by heat, gave us the means of correcting our 
chronometrical measurements of astronomical periods. It 
was thus when the lines of the prismatic spectrum were 



CONDITIONS OF ASTRONOMIC I'EOGEESS. 14:3 

used to distinguish the heavenly bodies that are of like na- 
ture with the sun from those which are not. It was thua 
when, as recently, an electro-telegraphic instrument was in- 
vented for the more accurate registration of meridional 
transits. It was thus when the difference in the rates of a 
clock at the equator, and nearer the poles, gave data for 
calculating the oblateness of the earth, and accounting for 
the precession of the equinoxes. It was thus — but it is 
needless to continue. 

Here, within our own limited knowledge of its history, we 
have named ten additional cases in which the single science 
of astronomy has owed its advance to sciences coming after 
it in M. Comte's series. Not only its secondary steps, but 
its greatest revolutions have been thus determined. Kep- 
ler could not have discovered his celebrated laws had it not 
been for Tycho Brahe's accurate observations ; and it was 
only after some progress in physical and chemical science 
that the improved instruments with which those observa- 
tions were made, became possible. The heliocentric theory 
of the solar system had to wait until the invention of the 
telescope before it could be finally established. Nay, even 
the grand discovery of all — the law of gravitation — depend- 
ed for its proof upon an operation of physical science, the 
measurement of a degree on the Earth's surface. So complete- 
ly indeed did it thus depend, that Newton had actually 
abandoned his hypothesis because the length of a degree, 
as then stated, brought out wrong results ; and it was only 
after Picart's more exact measurement was published, that 
he returned to his calculations and proved his great gener- 
alization. Now this constant intercommunion, which, for 
brevity's sake, we have illustrated in the case of one science 
only, has been taking place with all the sciences. Through- 
out the whole course of their evolution there has been a 
continuous consensus of the sciences — a consensus exhibit- 
ing a general correspondence with the consensus of facul 



144 THE GENESIS OE SCIENCE. 

ties in each phase of mental development ; the one being 
an objective registry of the subjective State of the other. 

From our present point of view, then, it becomes obvi- 
ous that the conception of a serial arrangement of the sci- 
ences is a vicious one. It is not simply that the schemes 
we have examined are untenable ; but it is that the sciences 
cannot be rightly placed in any linear order whatever. It 
is not simply that, as M. Comte admits, a classification 
" will always involve something, if not arbitrary, at least 
artificial ; " it is not, as he would have us believe, that, 
neglecting minor imperfections a classification may be sub- 
stantially true ; but it is that any grouping of the sciences 
in a succession gives a radically erroneous idea of their 
genesis and their dependencies. There is no " one rational 
order among a host of possible systems." There is no 
*' true filiation of the sciences." The whole hypothesis is 
fundamentally false. Indeed, it needs but a glance at its 
origin to see at once how baseless it is. Why a series? 
What reason have we to suppose that the sciences admit 
of a linear arrangement? Where is our warrant for 
assuming that there is some succession in which they can 
be placed? There is no reason; no warrant. Whence 
then has arisen the supposition ? To use M. Comte's own 
phraseology, we should say, it is a metaphysical conception. 
It adds another to the cases constantly occurring, of the 
human mind being made the measure of Nature. We are 
obliged to think in sequence ; it is the law of our minds 
that we must consider subjects separately, one after 
another : therefore Nature must be serial — therefore the 
sciences must be classifiable in a succession. See here the 
birth of the notion, and the sole evidence of its truth. 
Men have been obliged when arranging in books their 
schemes of education and systems of knowledge, to choose 
some order or other. And from inquiring what is the best 



THE SERIAL ORDEE ERRONEOUS. 145 

order, have naturally fallen into the belief that there is an 
order which truly represents the facts — have persevered in 
seeking such an order; quite overlooking the previous 
question whether it is likely that Nature has consulted the 
convenience of book-making. 

For German philosophers, who hold that Nature is 
c petrified intelligence," and that logical forms are the 
foundations of all things, it is a consistent hypothesis that 
as thought is serial, Nature is serial ; but that M. Comte, 
who is so bitter an opponent of all anthropomorphism, 
even in its most evanescent shapes, should have committed 
the mistake of imposing upon the external world an ar- 
rangement which so obviously springs from a limitation of 
the human consciousness, is somewhat strange. And it is 
the more strange when we call to mind how, at the outset, 
M. Comte remarks that in the beginning " toutes les sciences 
sont culdvees simultanement par les memes esprits ; " that 
this is " inevitable et mime indispensable / " and how he 
further remarks that the different sciences are " comme 
les diverses branches d'un tronc unique." Were it not 
accounted for by the distorting influence of a cherished 
hypothesis, it would be scarcely possible to understand 
how, after recognising truths like these, M. Comte should 
have persisted in attempting to construct " une echelle en- 
cyclopedique.'''' 

The metaphor which M. Comte has here so inconsis- 
tently used to express the relations of the sciences — 
branches of one trunk — is an approximation to the truth, 
though not the truth itself. It suggests the facts that the 
sciences had a common origin ; that they have been de- 
veloping simultaneously ; and that they have been from 
time to time dividing and sub-dividing. But it does not 
suggest the yet more important fact, that the divisions and 
sub-divisions thus arising do not remain separate, but now 
and again re-unite in direct and indirect ways. They 



146 THE GENESIS OP SCIENCE. 

inosculate ; they severally send off and receive connecting 
growths ; and the intercommunion has been ever becom- 
ing more frequent, more intricate, more widely ramified. 
There has all along been higher specialization, that there 
might be a larger generalization ; and a deeper analysis, 
that there might be a better synthesis. Each larger gen- 
eralization has lifted sundry specializations still higher ; and 
each better synthesis has prepared the way for still deeper 



And here we may fitly enter upon the task awhile since 
indicated — a sketch of the Genesis of Science, regarded as 
a gradual outgrowth from common knowledge — an exten- 
sion of the perceptions by the aid of the reason. We pro- 
pose to treat it as a psychological process historically dis- 
played ; tracing at the same time the advance from qualita- 
tive to quantitative prevision ; the progress from concrete 
facts to abstract facts, and the application of such abstract 
facts to the analysis of new orders of concrete facts ; the 
simultaneous advance in gereralization and specialization ; 
the continually increasing subdivision and reunion of the 
sciences ; and their constantly improving consensus. 

To trace out scientific evolution from its deepest roots 
would, of course, involve a complete analysis of the mind. 
For as science is a development of that common knowledge 
acquired by the unaided senses and uncultured reason, so 
is that common knowledge itself gradually built up out of 
the simplest perceptions. We must, therefore, begin 
somewhere abruptly ; and the most appropriate stage 
to take for our point of departure will be the adult mind 
of the savage. 

Commencing thus, without a proper preliminary analy- 
sis, we are naturally somewhat at a loss how to present, in 
a satisfactory manner, those fundamental processes of 
thought out of which science ultimately originates. Per 



WHEKE INTELLIGENCE BEGE5TS. 147 

haps our argument may be best initiated by the proposi 
tion, that all intelligent action whatever depends upon the 
discerning of distinctions among surrounding things. The 
condition under which only it is possible for any creature 
to obtain food and avoid danger is, that it shall be differ- 
ently affected by different objects — that it shall be led to 
act in one way by one object, and in another way by 
another. In the lower orders of creatures this condition is 
fulfilled by means of an apparatus which acts automatically. 
In the higher orders the actions are partly automatic, 
partly conscious. And in man they are almost wholly 
conscious. 

Throughout, however, there must necessai'ily exist a 
certain classification of things according to their properties 
— a classification whicb is either organically registered in 
the system, as in the inferior creation, or is formed by 
experience, as in ourselves. And it may be further re- 
marked, that the extent to which this classification is 
carried, roughly indicates the height of intelligence — that, 
while the lowest organisms are able to do little more than 
discriminate organic from inorganic matter ; while the 
generality of animals carry their classifications no further 
than to a limited number of plants or creatures serving 
for food, a limited number of beasts of prey, and a limited 
number of places and materials ; the most degraded of the 
human race possess a knowledge of the distinctive natures 
of a great variety of substances, plants, animals, tools, per- 
sons, &c, not only as classes but as individuals. 

What now is the mental process by which classification 
is effected ? Manifestly it is a recognition of the likeness 
or unlikeness of things, either in respect of their sizes, 
colours, forms, weights, textures, tastes, &c, or in respect 
of their modes of action. By some special mark, sound, or 
motion, the savage identifies a certain four-legged crea- 
ture he sees, as one that is good for food, and to be caught 



148 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

in a particular way ; or as one that is dangerous ; and acts 
accordingly. He has classed together all the creatures 
that are alike in this particular. And manifestly in choos- 
ing the wood out of which to form his bow, the plant with 
which to poison his arrows, the bone from which to make 
his fish-hooks, he identifies them through their chief sensi- 
ble properties as belonging to the general classes, wood, 
plant, and bone, but distinguishes them as belonging to 
sub-classes by virtue of certain properties in which they are 
unlike the rest of the general classes they belong to; and so 
forms genera and species. 

And here it becomes manifest that not only is classifica- 
tion carried on by grouping together in the mind things 
that are like ; but that classes and sub-classes are formed 
and arranged according to the degrees ofunlikeness. Things 
widely contrasted are alone distinguished in the lower 
stages of mental evolution ; as may be any day observed in 
an infant. And gradually as the powers of discrimination 
increase, the widely contrasted classes at first distinguished, 
come to be each divided into sub-classes, differing from 
each other less than the classes differ ; and these sub-classes 
are again divided after the same manner. By the continu- 
ance of which process, things are gradually arranged into 
groups, the members of which are less and less unlike / 
ending, finally, in groups whose members differ only as 
individuals, and not specifically. And thus there tends 
ultimately to arise the notion of complete likeness. For 
manifestly, it is impossible that groups should continue to 
be sub-divided in virtue of smaller and smaller differences, 
without there being a simultaneous approximation to the 
notion of no difference. 

Let us next notice that the recognition of likeness and 
unlikeness, which underlies classification, and out of which 
continued classification evolves the idea of complete like- 
ness — let us next notice that it also underlies the process 



THE ROOT OF PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. 149 

of naming, and by consequence language. For all lan- 
guage consists, at the beginning, of symbols which are as 
like to the things symbolized as it is practicable to make 
them. The language of signs is a means of conveying ideas 
by mimicking the actions or peculiarities of the things re- 
ferred to. Verbal language is also, at the beginning, a 
mode of suggesting objects or acts by imitating the sounds 
which the objects make, or with which the acts are accom- 
panied. Originally these two languages were used simul- 
taneously. It needs but to watch the gesticulations with 
which the savage accompanies his speech — to see a Bush- 
man or a Kaffir dramatizing before an audience his mode 
of catching game — or to note the extreme paucity of 
words in all primitive vocabularies ; to infer that at first, 
attitudes, gestures, and sounds, were all combined to pro- 
duce as good a likeness as possible, of the things, animals, 
persons, or events described ; and that as the sounds came 
to be understood by themselves the gestures fell into dis- 
use : leaving traces, however, in the manners of the more 
excitable civilized races. But be this as it may, it suffices 
simply to observe, how many of the words current among 
barbarous peoples are like the sounds appertaining to the 
things signified ; how many of our own oldest and simplest 
words have the same peculiarity ; how children tend to in- 
vent imitative words ; and how the sign-language sponta- 
neously formed by deaf mutes is invariably based upon 
imitative actions — to at once see that the notion of likeness 
is that from which the nomenclature of objects takes its 
rise. 

Were there space we might go on to point out how this 
law of life is traceable, not only in the origin but in the de- 
velopment of language ; how in primitive tongues the plu° 
ral is made by a duplication of the singular, which is a 
multiplication of the word to make it like the multiplicity 
of the things ; how the use of metaphor — that prolific 



150 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

source of new words — is a suggesting of ideas that are Ukt 
the ideas to be conveyed in some respect or other ; and 
how, in the copious use of simile, fable, and allegory among 
uncivilized races, we see that complex conceptions, which 
there is yet no direct language for, are rendered, by pre- 
senting known conceptions more or less like them. 

This view is further confirmed, and the predominance 
of this notion of likeness in primitive times further illus- 
trated, by the fact that our system of presenting ideas to 
the eye originated after the same fashion. Writing and 
printing have descended from picture-language. The ear- 
liest mode of permanently registering a fact was by depict- 
ing it on a wall ; that is — by exhibiting something as like to 
the thing to be remembered as it could be made. Grad- 
ually as the practice grew habitual and extensive, the most 
frequently repeated forms became fixed, and presently ab- 
breviated ; and, passing through the hieroglyphic and ideo- 
graphic phases, the symbols lost all apparent relations to 
the things signified : just as the majority of our spoken 
words have done. 

Observe again, that the same thing is true respecting 
the genesis of reasoning. The likeness that is perceived to 
exist between cases, is the essence of all early reasoning 
and of much of our present reasoning. The savage, hav- 
ing by experience discovered a relation between a certain 
object and a certain act, infers that the like relation will be 
found in future cases. And the expressions we constantly 
use in our arguments — " analogy implies," " the cases are 
not parallel," " by parity of reasoning," " there is no simi- 
larity^ — show how constantly the idea of likeness under- 
lies our ratiocinative processes. 

Still more clearly will this be seen on recognising the 
fact that there is a certain parallelism between reasoning 
and classification ; that the two have a common root ; and 
that neither can go on without the other. For on the one 



THE NATURE OF LIKENESS IN REASONING AND ART. 151 

hand, it is a familiar truth that the attributing to a body in 
consequence of some of its properties, all those other prop- 
erties in virtue of which it is referred to a particular class, 
is an act of inference. And, on the other hand, the form- 
ing of a generalization is the putting together in one class, 
all those cases which present like relations ; while the draw- 
ing a deduction is essentially the perception that a particu- 
lar case belongs to a certain class of cases previously gener- 
alized. So that as classification is a grouping together of 
like things ; reasoning is a grouping together of like rela- 
tions among things. Add to which, that while the pei-fec- 
tion gradually achieved in classification consists in the form- 
ation of groups of objects which are completely alike ; the 
perfection gradually achieved in reasoning consists in the 
formation of groups of cases which are completely alike. 

Once more we may contemplate this dominant idea of 
likeness as exhibited in art. All art, civilized as well as 
savage, consists almost wholly in the making of objects like 
other objects ; either as found in Nature, or as produced 
by previous art. If we trace back the varied art-products 
now existing, we find that at each stage the divergence 
from previous patterns is but small when compared with 
the agreement ; and in the earliest art the persistency of 
imitation is yet more conspicuous. The old forms and 
ornaments and symbols were held sacred, and perpetually 
copied. Indeed, the strong imitative tendency notoriously 
displayed by the lowest human races, ensures among them 
a constant reproducing of likenesses of things, forms, signs, 
eounds, actions, and whatever else is imitable ; and we may 
even suspect that this aboriginal peculiarity is in some way 
connected with the culture and development of this gen- 
eral conception, which we have found so deep and wide- 
spread in its applications. 

And now let us go on to consider how, by a further 
unfolding of this same fundamental notion, there is a grad- 



1.5 2 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

aal formation of the first germs of science. This idea oi 
likeness which underlies classification, nomenclature, lan« 
guage spoken and written, reasoning, and art ; and which 
plays so important a part because all acts of intelligence 
are made possible only by distinguishing among surround- 
ing things, or grouping them into like and unlike ; — this 
idea we shall find to be the one of which science is the es- 
pecial product. Already during the stage we have been 
describing, there has existed qualitative prevision in re- 
spect to the commoner phenomena with which savage life 
is familiar ; and we have now to inquire how the elements 
of quantitative prevision are evolved. We shall find that 
they originate by the perfecting of this same idea of like- 
ness ; that they have their rise in that conception of com- 
plete likeness which, as we have seen, necessarily results 
from the continued process of classification. 

For when the process of classification has been carried 
as far as it is possible for the uncivilized to carry it — when 
the animal kingdom has been grouped not merely into 
quadrupeds, birds, fishes, and insects, but each of these di- 
vided into kinds — when there come to be sub-classes, in 
each of which the members differ only as individuals, and 
not specifically ; it is clear that there must occur a frequent 
observation of objects which differ so little as to be indis- 
tinguishable. Among several creatures which the savage 
has killed and carried home, it must often happen that 
some one, which he wished to identify, is so exactly like 
another that he cannot tell which is which. Thus, then, 
there originates the notion of equality. The things which 
among ourselves are called equal — whether lines, angles, 
weights, temperatures, sounds or colours — are things which 
produce in us sensations that cannot be distinguished from 
each other. It is true that we now apply the word equal 
chiefly to the separate phenomena which objects exhibit, 
and not to groups of phenomena ; but this limitation of the 



IDEAS OF EQUALITY AND SIMILARITY. 153 

idea has evidently arisen by subsequent analysis. And that 
the notion of equality did thus originate, will, we think, 
become obvious on remembering that as there were no ar- 
tificial objects from which it could have been abstracted, it 
must have been abstracted from natural objects ; and that 
the various families of the animal kingdom chiefly furnish 
those natural objects which display the requisite exactitude 
of likeness. 

The same order of experiences out of which this gene- 
ral idea of equality is evolved, gives birth at the same time 
to a more complex idea of equality ; or, rather, the process 
just described generates an idea of equality which further 
experience separates into two ideas — equality of things and 
equality of relations. While organic, and more especially 
animal forms, occasionally exhibit this perfection of likeness 
out of which the notion of simple equality arises, they more 
frequently exhibit only that kind of likeness which we call 
similarity ; and which is really compound equality. For 
the similarity of two creatures of the same species but of 
different sizes, is of the same nature as the similarity of two 
geometrical figures. In either case, any two parts of the 
one bear the same ratio to one another, as the homologous 
parts of the other. Given in any species, the proportions 
found to exist among the bones, and we may, and zoologists 
do, predict from any one, the dimensions of the rest ; just as, 
when knowing the proportions subsisting among the parts 
of a geometrical figure, we may, from the length of one, 
calculate the others. And if, in the case of similar geome- 
trical figures, the similarity can be established only by 
proving exactness of proportion among the homologous 
parts ; if we express this relation between two parts in the 
one, and the corresponding parts in the other, by the for- 
mula A is to B as a is to b / if we otherwise write this, A 
to B=a to b / if, consequently, the fact we prove is that 
the relation of A to B equals the relation of a to b ; then 



L54 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

it is manifest that the fundamental conception of similarity 
is equality of relations. 

With this explanation we shall be understood when we 
say that the notion of equality of relations is the basis of 
all exact reasoning. Already it has been shown that reasoning 
in general is a recognition of likeness of relations ; and 
here we further find that while the notion of likeness of 
things ultimately evolves the idea of simple equality, tho 
notion of likeness of relations evolves the idea of equality 
of relations : of which the one is the concrete germ of ex- 
act science, while the other is its abstract germ. 

Those who cannot understand how the recognition of 
similarity in creatures of the same kind, can have any alli- 
ance with reasoning, will get over the difficulty on remem- 
bering that the phenomena among which equality of rela- 
tions is thus perceived, are phenomena of the same order 
and are present to the senses at the same time ; while those 
among which developed reason perceives relations, are gen- 
erally neither of the same order, nor simultaneously present. 
And if further, they will call to mind how Cuvier and Owen, 
from a single part of a creature, as a tooth, construct the 
rest by a process of reasoning based on this equality of re- 
lations, they will see that the two things are intimately 
connected, remote as they at first seem. But we anticipate. 
What it concerns us here to observe is, that from familiari- 
ty with organic forms there simultaneously arose the ideas 
of simple equality, and equality of relations. 

At the same time, too, and out of the same mental pro- 
cesses, came the first distinct ideas of number. In the earli- 
est stages, the presentation of several like objects produced 
merely an indefinite conception of multiplicity ; as it still 
does among Australians, and Bushmen, and Damaras, when 
the number presented exceeds three or four. With such a 
fact before us we may safely infer that the first clear numer- 
ical conception was that of duality as contrasted with uni. 



THE G-EKM OF NUMERICAL IDEAS. 155 

ty. And this notion of duality must necessai'ily have grown 
up side by side with those of likeness and equality ; seeing 
that it is impossible to recognise the likeness of two things 
without also perceiving that there are two. From the 
very beginning the conception of number must have been, 
as it is still, associated with the likeness or equality of 
the things numbered. If we analyze it, we find that sim- 
ple enumeration is a registration of repeated impres- 
sions of any kind. That these may be capable of enu- 
meration it is needful that they be more or less alike ; and 
before any absolutely true numerical results can be reach- 
ed, it is requisite that the units be absolutely equal. The 
only way in which we can establish a numerical relation- 
ship between things that do not yield us like impressions, 
is to divide them into parts that do yield us like impres- 
sions. Two unlike magnitudes of extension, force, time, 
weight, or what not, can have their relative amounts esti- 
mated, only by means of some small unit that is contained 
many times in both ; and even if we finally write down the 
greater one as a unit and the other as a fraction of it, we 
state, in the denominator of the fraction, the number of 
parts into which the unit must be divided to be compara- 
ble with the fraction. 

It is, indeed, true, that by an evidently modern process of 
abstraction, we occasionally apply numbers to unequal units, 
as the furniture at a sale or the various animals on a farm, 
simply as so many separate entities ; but no true result can 
be brought out by calculation with units of this order. 
And, indeed, it is the distinctive peculiarity of the calculus 
in general, that it proceeds on the hypothesis of that abso- 
lute equality of its abstract units, which no real units pos- 
sess ; and that the exactness of its results holds only in 
virtue of this hypothesis. The first ideas of number must 
necessarily then have been derived from like or equal mag- 
nitudes as seen chiefly in organic objects ; and as the like 



156 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

magnitudes most frequently observed were magnitudes of 
extension, it follows that geometry and arithmetic had a 
simultaneous origin. 

Not only are the first distinct ideas of number co-ordin 
ate with ideas of likeness and equality, but the first efforts 
at numeration displayed the same relationship. On read- 
ing the accounts of various savage tribes, we find that the 
method of counting by the fingers, still followed by many 
children, is the aboriginal method. Neglecting the several 
cases in which the ability to enumerate does not reach even 
to the number of fingers on one hand, there are many cases 
in which it does not extend beyond ten — the limit of the 
simple finger notation. The fact that in so many instances, 
remote, and seemingly unrelated nations, have adopted ten 
as their basic number ; together with the fact that in the re- 
maining instances the basic number is either^ue (the fingers 
of one hand) or twenty (the fingers and toes) ; almost of 
themselves show that the fingers were the original units of 
numeration. The still surviving use of the word digit, as 
the general name for a figure in arithmetic, is significant ; 
and it is even said that our word ten (Sax. tyn ; Dutch, 
tien ; German, zehn) means in its primitive expanded form 
two hands. So that originally, to say there were ten things, 
was to say there were two hands of them. 

From all which evidence it is tolorably clear that the 
earliest mode of conveying the idea of any number of 
things, was by holding up as many fingers as there were 
things ; that is— using a symbol which was equal, in respect 
of multiplicity, to the group symbolized. For which infer- 
ence there is, indeed, strong confirmation in the recent 
statement that our own soldiers are even now spontaneous- 
ly adopting this device in their dealings with the Turks. 
And here it should be remarked that in this recombination 
of the notion of equality with that of multiplicity, by which 
the first steps in numeration are effected, we may see one 



EARLY INTELLECTUAL GROWTHS NON-SERIAL. 157 

of the earliest of those inosculations between the diverging 
branches of science, which are afterwards of perpetual occur- 
rence. 

Indeed, as this observation suggests, it will be well, be- 
fore tracing the mode in which exact science finally emerges 
from the merely approximate judgments of the senses, and 
showing the non-serial evolution of its divisions, to note 
the non-serial character of those preliminary processes of 
which all after development is a continuation. On re-con- 
sidering them it will be seen that not only are they diver- 
gent growths from a common root, — not only are they sim- 
ultaneous in their progress ; but that they are mutual aids ; 
and that none can advance without the rest. That com- 
pleteness of classification for which the unfolding of the 
perceptions paves the way, is impossible without a corre- 
sponding progress in language, by which greater varieties 
of objects are thinkable and expressible. On the one hand 
it is impossible to carry classification far without names by 
which to designate the classes ; and on the other hand it 
is impossible to make language faster than things are classi- 
fied. 

Again, the multiplication of classes and the consequent 
narrowing of each class, itself involves a greater likeness 
among the things classed together ; and the consequent ap- 
proach towards the notion of complete likeness itself allowa 
classification to be carried higher. Moreover, classification 
necessarily advances pari passu with rationality — the clas- 
sification of things with the classification of relations. For 
things that belong to the same class are, by implication, 
things of which the properties and modes of behaviour — 
the co-existences and sequences — are more or less the same ; 
and the recognition of this sameness of co-existences and 
sequences is reasoning. Whence it follows that the advance 
of classification is necessarily proportionate to the advance 
of generalization? Yet further, the notion of likeness, both 



158 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

in tilings and relations, simultaneously evolves by one pro- 
cess of culture the ideas of equality of things and equality 
of relations ; which are the respective bases of exact con- 
crete reasoning and exact abstract reasoning— Mathematics 
and Logic. And once more, this idea of equality, in the 
very process of being formed, necessarily gives origin to 
two series of relations — those of magnitude and those of 
number : from which arise geometry and the calculus. Thus 
the process throughout is one of perpetual subdivision and 
perpetual intercommunication of the divisions. From the 
very first there has been that consensus of different kinds of 
knowledge, answering to the consensus of the intellectual 
faculties, which, as already said, must exist among the sci 
ences. 

Let us now go on to observe how, out of the notions of 
equality and number, as arrived at in the manner described, 
there gradually arose the elements of quantitative prevision. 

Equality, once having come to be definitely conceived, 
was readily applicable to other phenomena than those of 
magnitude. Being predicable of all things producing indis- 
tinguishable impressions, there naturally grew up ideas of 
equality in weights, sounds, colours, &c. ; and indeed it can 
scarcely be doubted that the occasional experience of equal 
weights, sounds, and colours, had a share in developing the 
abstract conception of equality — that the ideas of equality 
in size, relations, forces, resistances, and sensible proper- 
ties in general, were evolved during the same period. 
But however this may be, it is clear that as fast as the no- 
tion of equality gained definiteness, so fast did that lowest 
kind of quantitative prevision which is achieved without 
any instrumental aid, become possible. 

The ability to estimate, however roughly, the amount 
of a foreseen result, implies the conception that it will be 
zqual to a certain imagined quantity ; and the correctness 
<sf the estimate will manifestly depend upon the accuracy at 



: 



QUANTITATIVE EVOLUTION OF KNOWLEDGE. 159 

which the perceptions of sensible equality have arrived. A 
savage with a piece of stone in his hand, and another piece 
lying before him of greater bulk but of the same kind (a 
fact which he infers from the equality of the two in colour 
and texture) knows about what effort he must put forth to 
raise this other piece; and he judges accurately in propor- 
tion to the accuracy with which he perceives that the one 
is twice, three times, four times, &c. as lai'ge as the pther ; 
that is — in proportion to the precision of his ideas of equali- 
ty and number. And here let us not omit to notice that 
even in these vaguest of quantitative previsions, the concep- 
tion of equality of relations is also involved. For it is only 
in virtue of an undefined perception that the relation be- 
tween bulk and weight in the one stone is equal to the re- 
lation between bulk and weight in the other, that even the 
roughest approximation can be made. 

But how came the transition from those uncertain per- 
ceptions of equality which the unaided senses give, to the 
certain ones with which science deals ? It came by placing 
the things compared in juxtaposition. Equality being pre- 
dicated of things which give us indistinguishable impres- 
sions, and no accurate comparison of impressions being 
possible unless they occur in immediate succession, it re- 
sults that exactness of equality is ascertainable in propor- 
tion to the closeness of the compared things. Hence the 
fact that when we wish to judge of two shades of colour 
whether they are alike or not, we place them side by side ; 
hence the fact that we cannot, with any precision, say which 
of two allied sounds is the louder, or the higher in pitch, 
unless we hear the one immediately after the other ; hence 
the fact that to estimate the ratio of weights, we take one 
m each hand, that we may compare their pressures by rap- 
idly alternating in thought from the one to the other ; hence 
the fact, that in a piece of music, we caii continue to make 
equal beats when the first beat has been given, but cannot 



160 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

ensure commencing with the same length of beat on a fu- 
ture occasion ; and hence, lastly, the fact, that of all magni- 
tudes, those of linear extension are those of which th« 
equality is most accurately ascertainable, and those to 
which by consequence all others have to be reduced. For 
it is the peculiarity of linear extension that it alone allows 
its magnitudes to be placed in absolute juxtaposition, or, 
rather, in coincident position ; it alone can test the equality 
of two magnitudes by observing whether they will coalesce, 
as two equal mathematical lines do, when placed between 
the same points ; it alone can test equality by trying wheth- 
er it will become identity. Hence, then, the fact, that all 
exact science is reducible, by an ultimate analysis, to results 
measured in equal units of linear extension. 

Still it remains to be noticed in what manner this deter- 
mination of equality by comparison of linear magnitudes 
originated. Once more may we perceive that surrounding 
natural objects supplied the needful lessons. From the be- 
ginning there must have been a constant experience of like 
things placed side by side — men standing and walking to- 
gether ; animals from the same herd ; fish from the same 
shoal. And the ceaseless repetition of these experiences 
could not fail to suggest the observation, that the nearer 
together any objects were, the more visible became any in- 
equality between them. Hence the obvious device of put- 
ting in apposition, things of which it was desired to ascer- 
tain the relative magnitudes. Hence the idea of measure. 
And here we suddenly come upon a group of facts which 
afford a solid basis to the remainder of our argument; while 
they also furnish strong evidence in support of the forego- 
ing speculations. Those who look sceptically on this at- 
tempted rehabilitation of the earliest epochs of mental de- 
velopment, and who more especially think that the derivation 
of so many primary notions from organic forms is somewhat 
strained, will perhaps see more probability in the severa- 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEA OF MEASURE. 161 

hypotheses that have been ventured, on discovering that all 
measures of extension and force originated from the lengths 
and weights of organic bodies ; and all measures of time 
from the periodic phenomena of either organic or inorganic 
bodies. 

Thus, among linear measures, the cubit of the Hebrews 
was the length of the forearm from the elbow to the end 
of the middle finger ; and the smaller scriptural dimensions 
are expressed in hand-breadths and spans. The Egyptian 
cubit, which was similarly derived, was divided into digits, 
which were finger-breadths ; and each finger-breadth was 
more definitely expressed as being equal to four grains of 
barley placed breadthwise. Other ancient measures were 
the orgyia or stretch of the arms, the pace, and the palm. 
So persistent has been the use of these natural units of 
length in the East, that even now some of the Arabs mete 
out cloth by the forearm. So, too, is it with European 
measures. The foot prevails as a dimension throughout 
Europe, and has done since the time of the Romans, by 
whom, also, it was used : its lengths in different places va- 
rying not much more than men's feet vary. The heights 
of horses are still expressed in hands. The inch is the 
length of the terminal joint of the thumb; as is clearly 
shown in France, where pouce means both thumb and inch. 
Then we have the inch divided into three barley-corns. 

So completely, indeed, have these organic dimensions 
served as the substrata of all mensuration, that it is only 
by means of them that we can form any estimate of some 
of the ancient distances. For example, the length of a 
degree on the Earth's surface, as determined by the Ara- 
bian astronomers shortly after the death of Haroun-al-Ras- 
chid, was fifty-six of their miles. We know nothing of 
their mile further than that it was 4000 cubits ; and whether 
these were sacred cubits or common cubits, would remain 
loubtful, but that the length of the cubit is given as twem 



162 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

ty-seven inches, and each inch defined as the thickness of 
six barley-grains. Thus one of the earliest measurements 
of a degree comes down to us in barley-grains. Not only 
did organic lengths furnish those approximate measures 
which satisfied men's needs in ruder ages, but they fur- 
nished also the standard measures required in later 
times. One instance occurs in our own history. To 
remedy the irregularities then prevailing, Henry I. com- 
manded that the ulna, or ancient ell, which answers to 
the modern yard, should be made of the exact length of 
his own arm. 

Measures of weight again had a like derivation. Seeds 
seem commonly to have supplied the unit. The original 
of the carat used for weighing in India is a small bean 
Our own systems, both troy and avoirdupois, are derived 
primarily from wheat- corns. Our smallest weight, the 
grain, is a grain of wheat. This is not a speculation ; it ia 
an historically registered fact. Henry III. enacted that an 
ounce should be the weight of 640 dry grains of wheat 
from the middle of the ear. And as all the other weights 
are multiples or sub-multiples of this, it follows that the 
grain of wheat is the basis of our scale. So natural is it to 
use organic bodies as weights, before artificial weights 
have been established, or where they are not to be had, 
that in some of the remoter parts of Ireland the people 
are said to be in the habit, even now, of putting a man 
into the scales to serve as a measure for heavy com- 
modities. 

. Similai-ly with time. Astronomical periodicity, and the 
periodicity of animal and vegetable life, are simultaneously 
used in the first stages of progress for estimating epochs. 
The simplest unit of time, the day, nature supplies ready 
made. The next simplest period, the mooneth or month, 
is also thrust upon men's notice by the conspicuous changes 
constituting a lunation. For larger divisions than these. 



PRIMITIVE MEASUREMENTS OF TIME. 163 

the phenomena of the seasons, and the chief events from 
time to time occurring, have been used by early and un- 
civilized races. Among the Egyptians the rising of the 
Nile served as a mark. The New Zealanders were found 
to begin their year from the reappearance of the Pleiades 
above the sea. One of the uses ascribed to birds, by the 
Greeks, was to indicate the seasons by their migrations. 
Barrow describes the aboriginal Hottentot as denoting 
periods by the number of moons before or after the ripen- 
ing of one of his chief articles of food. He further states 
that the Kaffir chronology is kept by the moon, and is 
registered by notches on sticks — the death of a favourite 
chief, or the gaining of a victory, serving for a new era. 
By which last fact, we are at once reminded that in early 
history, events are commonly recorded as occurring in cer- 
tain reigns, and in certain years of certain reigns: a proceed- 
ing which practically made a king's reign a measure of 
duration. 

And, as further illustrating the tendency to divide time 
by natural phenomena and natural events, it may be no- 
ticed that even by our own peasantry the definite divisions 
of months and years are but little used ; and that they 
habitually refer to occurrences as " before sheep-shearing," 
or " after harvest," or " about the time when the squire 
died." It is manifest, therefore, that the more or less 
equal periods perceived in Nature gave the first units of 
measure for time ; as did Nature's more or less equal 
lengths and weights give the first units of measure for space 
and force. 

It remains only to observe, as further illustrating the 
evolution of quantitative ideas after this manner, that 
measures of value were similarly derived. Barter, in one 
form or other, is found among all but the very lowest hu- 
man races. It is obviously based upon the notion of 
equality of worth. And as it gradually merges into trade 



164 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

by the introduction of some kind of currency, we find 
that the measures of worth, constituting this currency, 
are organic bodies ; in some cases cowries, in others 
cocoa-nuts, in others cattle, in others pigs; among the 
American Indians peltry or shins, and in Iceland dried 
fish. 

Notions of exact equality and of measure having been 
reached, there came to be definite ideas of relative magni- 
tudes as being multiples one of another ; whence the prac- 
tice of measurement by direct apposition of a measure. 
The determination of linear extensions by this process can 
scarcely be called science, though it is a step towards it ; 
but the determination of lengths of time by an analogous 
process may be considered as one of the earliest samples of 
quantitative prevision. For when it is first ascertained 
that the moon completes the cycle of her changes in about 
thirty days — a fact known to most uncivilized tribes that 
can count beyond the number of their fingers — it is mani- 
fest that it becomes possible to say in what number of days 
any specified phase of the moon will recur ; and it is also 
manifest that this prevision is effected by an opposition of 
two times, after the same manner that linear space is meas- 
ured by the opposition of two fines. For to express the 
moon's period in days, is to say how many of these units 
of measure are contained in the period to be measured — is 
to ascertain the distance between two points in time by 
means of a scale of days, just as we ascertain the distance 
between two points in space by a scale of feet or inches : 
and in each case the scale coincides with the thing meas- 
ured — mentally in the one ; visibly in the other. So that 
in this simplest, and perhaps earliest case of quantitative 
prevision, the phenomena are not only thrust daily upoa 
men's notice, but Nature is, as it were, perpetually repeat- 
ing that process of measurement by observing which 
the prevision is effected. And thus there may be signi- 



PIIIMITIVE MEASUREMENTS OF TIME. 165 

ficance in the remark which some have made, that alike 
in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, there is an affinity be- 
tween the word meaning moon, and that meaning measure. 

This fact, that in very early stages of social progress it 
is known that the moon goes through her changes in about 
thirty days, and that in about twelve moons the seasons 
return — this fact that chronological astronomy assumes a 
certain scientific character even before geometry does ; 
while it is partly due to the circumstance that the astro- 
nomical divisions, day, month, and year, are ready made 
for us, is partly due to the further circumstances that 
agricultural and other operations were at first regulated 
astronomically, and that from the supposed divine nature 
of the heavenly bodies their motions determined the 
periodical religious festivals. As instances of the one we 
have the observation of the Egyptians, that the rising of 
the Nile corresponded with the heliacal rising of Sirius ; 
the directions given by Hesiod for reaping and ploughing, 
according to the positions of the Pleiades ; and his maxim 
that " fifty days after the turning of the sun is a seasonable 
time for beginning a voyage." As instances of the other, 
we have the naming of the days after the sun, moon, and 
planets ; the early attempts among Eastern nations to 
regulate the calendar so that the gods might not be offend- 
ed by the displacement of their sacrifices ; and the fix- 
ing of the great annual festival of the Peruvians by the 
position of the sun. In all which facts wo see that, 
at first, science was simply an appliance of religion and 
industry. 

After the discoveries that a lunation occupies nearly 
-thirty days, and that some twelve lunations occupy a year 
— discoveries of which there is no historical account, but 
which may be inferred as the earliest, from the fact that 
existing uncivilized races have made them — we come to 
the first known astronomical records, which are those of 



166 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

. 

eclipses. The Chaldeans were able to predict these. 
" This they did, probably," says Dr. Whewell in his useful 
history, from which most of the materials we are about to 
use will be drawn, " by means of their cycle of 223 months, 
or about eighteen years ; for at the end of this time, the 
eclipses of the moon begin to return, at the same intervals 
and in the same order as at the beginning." Now this meth- 
od of calculating eclipses by means of a recurring cycle, — 
the Saros as they called it — is a more complex case of pre- 
vision by means of coincidence of measures. For by what 
observations must the Chaldeans have discovered this 
cycle ? Obviously, as Delambre infers, by inspecting their 
registers ; by comparing the successive intervals ; by find- 
ing that some of the intervals were alike ; by seeing that 
these equal intervals were eighteen years apart ; by discov- 
ering that all the intervals that were eighteen years apart 
were equal ; by ascertaining that the intervals formed a 
series which repeated itself, so that if one of the cycles of 
intervals were superposed on another the divisions would 
fit. This once perceived, and it manifestly became possi- 
ble to use the cycle as a scale of time by which to measure 
out future periods. Seeing thus that the process of so pre- 
dicting eclipses, is in essence the same as that of predicting 
the moon's monthly changes by observing the number of 
days after which they repeat — seeing that the two differ 
only in the extent and irregularity of the intervals, it is not 
difficult to understand how such an amount of knowledge 
should so early have been reached. And we shall be less 
surprised, on remembering that the only things involved 
in these previsions were time and number • and that the 
time was in a manner self-numbered. 

Still, the ability to predict events recurring only after 
so long a period as eighteen years, implies a considerable 
advance in civilization — a considerable development of gen- 
eral knowledge ; and we have now to inquire what progress 



KNOWLEDGE IMPLIED BY EAKLY ASTRONOMY. 167 

in other sciences acoompanied, and was necessary to, these 
astronomical previsions. In the first place, there must 
clearly have been a tolerably efficient system of calculation. 
Mere finger-counting, mere head-reckoning, even with the 
aid of a regular decimal notation, could not have sufficed 
for numbering the days in a year ; much less the years, 
months, and days between eclipses. Consequently there 
must have been a mode of registering numbers ; probably 
even a system of numerals. The earliest numerical rec- 
ords, if we may judge by the practices of the less civilized 
races now existing, were probably kept by notches cut on 
sticks, or strokes marked on walls ; much as public-house 
scores are kept now. And there seems reason to believe 
that the first numerals used were simply groups of straight, 
strokes, as some of the still-extant Roman ones are ; lead- 
ing us to suspect that these groups of strokes were used to 
represent groups of fingers, as the groups of fingers had 
been used to represent groups of objects — a supposition 
quite in conformity with the aboriginal system of picture 
writing and its subsequent modifications. Be this so or 
not, however, it is manifest that before the Chaldeans dis- 
covered their Saros, there must have been both a set of 
written symbols serving for an extensive numeration, and 
a familiarity with the simpler rules of arithmetic. 

Not only must abstract mathematics have made some 
progress, but concrete mathematics also. It is scarcely 
possible that the buildings belonging to this era should 
have been laid out and erected without any knowledge of 
geometry. At any rate, there must have existed that ele 
mentary geometry which deals with direct measurement — 
with the apposition of lines ; and it seems that only after 
the discovery of those simple proceedings, by which right 
angles are drawn, and relative positions fixed, could so reg- 
ular an architecture be executed. In the case of the other 
division of concrete mathematics — mechanics, we have defi- 



168 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

nite evidence of progress. We know that the lever and 
the inclined plane were employed during this period : im- 
plying that there was a qualitative prevision of their effects, 
though not a quantitative one. But we know more. We 
read of weights in the earliest records ; and we find weights 
in ruins of the highest antiquity. Weights imply scales, 
of which we have also mention ; and scales involve the 
primary theorem of mechanics in its least complicated form 
— involve not a qualitative but a quantitative prevision of 
mechanical effects. And here we may notice how mechan- 
ics, in common with the other exact sciences, took its rise 
from the simplest application of the idea of equality. For 
the mechanical proposition which the scales involve, is, that 
if a lever with equal arms, have equal weights suspended 
from them, the weights will remain at equal altitudes. 
And we may further notice, how, in this first step of ra- 
tional mechanics, we see illustrated that truth awhile since 
referred to, that as magnitudes of linear extension are the 
only ones of which the equality is exactly ascertainable, the 
equalities of other magnitudes have at the outset to be de- 
termined by means of them. For the equality of the 
weights which balance each other in scales, wholly depends 
upon the equality of the arms : we can know that the 
weights are equal only by proving that the arms are equal. 
And when by this means we have obtained a system of 
weights, — a set of equal units of force, then does a science 
of mechanics become possible. Whence, indeed, it follows, 
that rational mechanics could not possibly have any other 
starting-point than the scales. 

Let us further remember, that during this same period 
there was a limited knowledge of chemistry. The many 
arts which we know to have been carried on must have 
been impossible without a generalized experience of the 
modes in which certain bodies affect each other under spe- 
cial conditions. In metallurgy, which was extensively 



THE IMPLICATIONS OF EARLY ASTRONOMY. 169 

practised, this is abundantly illustrated. And we even 
have evidence that in some cases the knowledge possessed 
was, in a sense, quantitative. For, as we find by analysis 
that the hard alloy of which the Egyptians made their cut- 
ting tools, was composed of copper and tin in fixed pro- 
portions, there must have been an established prevision that 
such an alloy was to be obtained only by mixing them in 
th«5se proportions. It is true, this was but a simple empiri- 
cal generalization ; but so was the generalization respecting 
the recurrence of eclipses ; so are the first generalizations 
of every science. 

Respecting the simultaneous advance of the sciences 
during this early epoch, it only remains to remark that 
even the most complex of them must have made some 
progress — perhaps even a greater relative progress than 
any of the rest. For under what conditions only were the 
foregoing developments possible ? There first required an 
established and organized social system. A long continued 
registry of eclipses ; the building of palaces ; the use of 
scales ; the practice of metallurgy — alike imply a fixed and 
populous nation. The existence of such a nation not only 
presupposes laws, and some administration of justice, which 
we know existed, but it presupposes successful laws — laws 
conforming in some degree to the conditions of social sta- 
bility — laws enacted because it was seen that tho actions 
forbidden by them were dangerous to the State. We do 
not by any means say that all, or even the greater part, of 
the laws were of this nature ; but we do say, that the fun- 
damental ones were. It cannot be denied that the laws 
affecting life and property were such. It cannot be denied 
that, however little these were enforced between class and 
class, they were to a considerable extent enforced between 
members of the same class. It can scarcely be questioned, 
that the administration of them between members of the 
same class was seen by rulers to be necessary for keeping 



LTO THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

their subjects together. And knowing, as we do, that, 
other things equal, nations prosper in proportion to the 
justness of their arrangements, we may fairly infer that 
the very cause of the advance of these earliest nations out 
of aboriginal barbarism, was the greater recognition among 
them of the claims to life and property. 

But supposition aside, it is clear that the habitual recog- 
nition of these claims in their laws, implied some prevision 
of social phenomena. Even thus early there was a certain 
amount of social science. Nay, it may even be shown that 
there was a vague recognition of that fundamental princi- 
ple on which all the true social science is based — the equal 
rights of all to the free exercise of their faculties. That 
same idea of equality, which, as we have seen, underlies 
all other science, underlies also morals and sociology. The 
conception of justice, which is the primary one in morals ; 
and the administration of justice, which is the vital condi- 
tion of social existence ; are impossible, without the recog- 
nition of a certain likeness in men's claims, in virtue of their 
common humanity. Equity literally means equalness ; and 
if it be admitted that there were even the vaguest ideas of 
equity in these primitive eras, it must be admitted that 
there was some appreciation of the equalness of men's lib- 
erties to pursue the objects of life — some appreciation, 
therefore, of the essential principle of national equilibrium. 

Thus in this initial stage of the positive sciences, before 
geometry had yet done more than evolve a few empirical 
rules — before mechanics had passed beyond its first theo- 
rem — before astronomy had advanced from its merely chro- 
nological phase into the geometrical ; the most involved of 
the sciences had reached a certain degree of development 
— a development without which no progress in other sci- 
ences was possible. 

Only noting as we pass, how, thus early, we may see 
that the progress of exact science was not only towards an 



ORIGIN OF GEOMETRICAL ASTRONOMY. 171 

increasing number of previsions, but towards previsions 
more accurately quantitative — bow, in astronomy, the re- 
curring period of the moon's motions was by and by more 
correctly ascertained to be nineteen years, or two hundred 
and thirty-five lunations ; how Callipus further corrected 
this Metonic cycle, by leaving out a day at the end of every 
seventy-six years ; and how these successive advances im 
plied a longer continued registry of observations, and the 
co-ordination of a greater number of facts — let us go on to 
inquire how geometrical astronomy took its rise. 

The first astronomical instrument was the gnomon 
This was not only early in use in the East, but it was found 
also among the Mexicans ; the sole astronomical observa- 
tions of the Peruvians were made by it ; and we read that 
1100 B.C., the Chinese found that, at a certain place, the 
length of the sun's shadow, at the summer solstice, was to 
the height of the gnomon, as one and a half to eight. 
Here again it is observable, not only that the instrument is 
found ready made, but that Nature is perpetually perform- 
ing the process of measurement. Any fixed, erect object 
— a column, a dead palm, a pole, the angle of a building — 
serves for a gnomon ; and it needs but to notice the chang- 
ing position of the shadow it daily throws, to make the 
first step in geometrical astronomy. How small this first 
step was, may be seen in the fact that the only things as- 
certained at the outset were the periods of the summer 
and winter solstices, which corresponded with the least and 
greatest lengths of the mid-day shadow ; and to fix which, 
it was needful merely to mark the point to which each 
day's shadow reached. 

And now let it not be overlooked that in the observing 
at what time during the next year this extreme limit of the 
shadow was again reached, and in the inference that the 
sun had then arrived at the same turning point in his an- 
nual course, we have one of the simplest instances of that 



172 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

combined use of equal magnitudes and equal relations, by 
which all exact science, all quantitative prevision, is reached. 
For the relation observed was between the length of the 
sun's shadow and his position in the heavens ; and the in- 
ference drawn was that when, next year, the extremity of 
his shadow came to the same point, he occupied the same 
place. That is, the ideas involved were, the equality of the 
shadows, and the equality of the relations between shadow 
and sun in successive years. As in the case of the scales, 
the equality of relations here recognized is of the simplest 
order. It is not as those habitually dealt with in the higher 
kinds of scientific reasoning, which answer to the general 
type — the relation between two and three equals the rela- 
tion between six and nine ; but it follows the type — the re- 
lation between two and three, equals the relation between 
two and three ; it is a case of not simply equal relations, 
but coinciding relations. And here, indeed, we may see 
beautifully illustrated how the idea of equal relations takes 
its rise after the same manner that that of equal magnitude 
does. As already shown, the idea of equal magnitudes 
arose from the observed coincidence of two lengths placed 
together ; and in this case we have not only two coincident 
lengths of shadows, but two coincident relations between 
sun and shadows. 

From the use of the gnomon there naturally grew up 
the conception of angular measurements ; and with the 
advance of geometrical conceptions there came the hemi- 
sphere of Berosus, the equinoctial armil, the solstitial armil, 
and the quadrant of Ptolemy — all of them employing shad- 
ows as indices of the sun's position, but in combination 
with angular divisions. It is obviously out of the question 
for us here to trace these details of progress. It must suf- 
fice to remark that in all of them we may see that notion 
of equality of relations of a more complex kind, which ia 
best illustrated in the astrolabe, an instrument which con- 



PROGRESS OF GEOMETRICAL ASTRONOMY. 173 

risted " of circular rims, moveable one within the other, or 
about poles, and contained circles which were to be brought 
into the position of the ecliptic, and of a plane passing 
through the sun and the poles of the ecliptic " — an instru- 
ment, therefore, which represented, as by a model, the rel- 
ative positions of certain imaginary lines and planes in tlw 
heavens ; which was adjusted by putting these representa- 
tive lines and planes into parallelism and coincidence with 
the celestial ones ; and which depended for its use upon the 
perception that the relations between these representative 
lines and planes were equal to the relations between those 
represented. 

Were there space, we might go on to point out how the 
conception of the heavens as a revolving hollow sphere, 
the discovery of the globular form of the earth, the expla- 
nation of the moon's phases, and indeed all the successive 
steps taken, involved this same mental process. But we 
must content ourselves with referring to the theory of ec- 
centrics and epicycles, as a further marked illustration ot 
it. As first suggested, and as proved by Hipparchus to af- 
ford an explanation of the leading irregularities in the ce- 
lestial motions, this theory involved the perception that 
the progressions, retrogressions, and variations of velocity 
seen in the heavenly bodies, might be reconciled with their 
assumed uniform movement in circles, by supposing that 
the earth was not in the centre of their orbits ; or by sup- 
posing that they revolved in circles whose centres revolved 
round the earth ; or by both. The discovery that this 
would account for the appearances, was the discovery that 
in certain geometrical diagrams the relations were such, 
that the uniform motion of a point would, when looked at 
from a particular position, present analogous irregularities ; 
and the calculations of Hipparchus involved the belief that the 
relations subsisting among these geometrical curves were 
i^xial, to the relations subsisting among the celestial orbits. 



174 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

Leaving here these details of astronomical progress, and 
the philosophy of it, let us observe how the relatively con- 
crete science of geometrical astronomy, having been thus 
far helped forward by the development of geometry in gen- 
eral, reacted upon geometry, caused it also to advance, and 
was again assisted by it. Hipparchus, before making hie 
solar and lunar tables, had to discover rules for calculating 
the relations between the sides and angles of triangles — 
trigonometry a subdivision of pure mathematics. Further, 
the reduction of the doctrine of the sphere to the quanti- 
tative form needed for astronomical purposes, required the 
formation of a spherical trigonometry, which was also 
achieved by Hipparchus. Thus both plane and spherical 
trigonometry, which are parts of the highly abstract and 
simple science of extension, remained undeveloped until 
the less abstract and more complex science of the celestial 
motions had need of them. The fact admitted by M. 
Comte, that since Descartes the progress of the abstract 
division of mathematics has been determined by that of 
the concrete division, is paralleled by the still more signifi- 
cant fact that even thus early the progress of mathematics 
was determined by that of astronomy. 

And here, indeed, we may see exemplified the truth, 
tvhich the subsequent history of science frequently illus- 
trates, that before any more abstract division makes a fur- 
ther advance, some more concrete division must suggest 
the necessity for that advance — must present the new order 
of questions to be solved. Before astronomy presented 
Hipparchus with the problem of solar tables, there was 
nothing to raise the question of the relations between lines 
and angles ; the subject-matter of trigonometry had not 
been conceived. And as there must be subject-matter be- 
fore there can be investigation, it follows that the progress 
of the concrete divisions is as necessary to that of the ab« 
etiact, as the progress of the abstract to that of the concrete. 



EVOLUTION OF ALGEBRA AND MECHANICS. 175 

Just incidentally noticing the circumstance that the 
epoch we are describing witnessed the evolution of algebra, 
a comparatively abstract division of mathematics, by the 
union of its less abstract divisions, geometry and arithme- 
tic — a fact proved by the earliest extant samples of alge- 
bra, which are half algebraic, half geometric — we go on to 
observe that during the era in which mathematics and 
astronomy were thus advancing, rational mechanics made 
its second step ; and something was done towards giving a 
quantitative form to hydrostatics, optics, and harmonics. 
In each case we shall see as before, how the idea of equal- 
ity underlies all quantitative prevision ; and in what simple 
forms this idea is first applied. 

As already shown, the first theorem established in me- 
chanics was, that equal weights suspended from a lever with 
equal arms would remain in equilibrium. Archimedes dis- 
covered that a lever with unequal arms was in equilibrium 
when one weight was to its arm as the other arm to its 
weight ; that is — when the numerical relation between one 
weight and its arm was equal to the numerical relation be- 
tween the other arm and its weight. 

The first advance made in hydrostatics, which we also 
owe to Archimedes, was the discovery that fluids press 
equally in all directions ; and from this followed the solu- 
tion of the problem of floating bodies : namely, that they 
are in equilibrium when the upward and downward pres- 
sures are equal. 

In optics, again, the Greeks found that the angle of in- 
cidence is equal to the angle of reflection ; and their knowl- 
edge reached no further than to such simple deductions 
from this as their geometry sufiiced for. In harmonics 
they ascertained the fact that three strings of equal lengths 
would yield the octave, fifth and fourth, when strained by 
weights having certain definite ratios ; and they did not 
progress much beyond this. In the one of which cases we 



LY6 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

see geometry used in elucidation of the laws of light ; and 
in the other, geometry and arithmetic made to measure the 
phenomena of sound. 

Did space permit, it would be desirable here to de- 
scribe the state of the less advanced sciences — to point out 
how, while a few had thus reached the first stages of quan- 
titative prevision, the rest were progressing in qualitative 
prevision — how some small generalizations were made re- 
specting evaporation, and heat, and electricity, and mag- 
netism, which, empirical as they were, did not in that re- 
spect differ from the first generalizations of every science — 
how the Greek physicians had made advances in physiology 
and pathology, which, considering the great imperfection 
of our present knowledge, are by no means to be despised 
— how zoology had been so far systematized by Aristotle, 
as, to some extent, enabled him from the presence of cer- 
tain organs to predict the presence of others — how in Aris- 
totle's Politics, there is some progress towards a scientific 
conception of social phenomena, and sundry previsions re- 
specting them — and how in the state of the Greek socie- 
ties, as well as in the writings of Greek philosophers, we 
may recognise not only an increasing clearness in that con- 
ception of equity on which the social science is based, but 
also some appreciation of the fact that social stability de- 
pends upon the maintenance of equitable regulations. We 
might dwell at length upon the causes which retarded the 
development of some of the sciences, as for example, chemis- 
try ; showing that relative complexity had nothing to do 
with it — that the oxidation of a piece of iron is a simpler 
phenomenon than the recurrence of eclipses, and the dis- 
covery of carbonic acid less difficult than that of the pre- 
cession of the equinoxes — but that the relatively slow ad- 
vance of chemical knowledge was due, partly to the fact 
that its phenomena were not daily thrust on men's notice 
as those of astronomy were ; partly to the fact that Nature 



WHY CHEMISTRY DEVELOPED SO SLOWLY. 177 

does not habitually supply the means, and suggest the 
modes of investigation, as in the sciences dealing with time 
extension, and force ; and partly to the fact that the greal 
majority of the materials with which chemistry deals, in 
6tead of being ready to hand, are made known only by thf 
arts in their slow growth ; and partly to the fact that even 
when known, their chemical properties are not self-exhibit 
ed, but have to be sought out by experiment. 

Merely indicating all these considerations, however, let 
us go on to contemplate the progress and mutual influence 
of the sciences in modern days ; only parenthetically no- 
ticing how, on the revival of the scientific spirit, the suc- 
cessive stages achieved exhibit the dominance of the same 
law hitherto traced — how the primary idea in dynamics, a 
uniform force, was defined by Galileo to be a force which 
generates equal velocities in equal successive times — how 
the uniform action of gravity was first experimentally de- 
termined by showing that the time elapsing before a body 
thrown up, stopped, was equal to the time it took to fall — 
how the first fact in compound motion which Galileo ascer- 
tained was, that a body projected horizontally will have a 
uniform motion onwards and a uniformly accelerated mo- 
tion downwards ; that is, will describe equal horizontal 
spaces in equal times, compounded with equal vertical in- 
crements in equal times — how his discovery respecting the 
pendulum was, that its oscillations occupy equal intervals 
of time whatever their length — how the principle of virtual 
velocities which he established is, that in any machine the 
weights that balance each other, are reciprocally as their 
vii'tual velocities ; that is, the relation of one set of weights 
to their velocities equals the relation of the other set of 
velocities to their weights ; — and how thus his achieve- 
ments consisted in showing the equalities of certain magni- 
tudes and relations, whose equalities had not been pre< 
viously recognised. 



178 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

When mechanics had reached the point to •which Galileo 
brought it — when the simple laws of force had been dis- 
entangled from the friction and atmospheric resistance by 
which all their earthly manifestations are disguised — when 
progressing knowledge of physics had given a due insight 
into these disturbing causes — when, by an effort of abstrac- 
tion, it was perceived that all motion would be uniform 
and rectilinear unless interfered with by external forces — 
and when the various consequences of this perception had 
been worked out ; then it became possible, by the union of 
geometry and mechanics, to initiate physical astronomy. 
Geometry and mechanics having diverged from a common 
root in men's sensible experiences ; having, with occasional 
inosculations, been separately developed, the one partly in 
connexion with astronomy, the other solely by analyzing 
terrestrial movements ; now join in the investigations of 
Newton to create a true theory of the celestial motions. 
And here, also, we have to notice the important fact that, 
in the very process of being brought jointly to bear upon 
astronomical problems, they are themselves raised to a 
higher phase of development. For it was in dealing with 
the questions raised by celestial dynamics that the then 
incipient infinitesimal calculus was unfolded by Newton and 
his continental successors ; and it was from inquiries into 
the mechanics of the solar system that the general theorems 
of mechanics contained in the " Principia," — many of them 
of purely terrestrial application — took their rise. Thus, as 
in the case of Hipparchus, the presentation of a new order 
of concrete facts to be analyzed, led to the discovery of 
new abstract facts; and these abstract facts having been 
/aid hold of, gave means of access to endless groups 
of concrete facts before incapable of quantitative treat- 
ment. 

Meanwhile, physics had been carrying further that pro- 
gress without which, as just shown, rational mechanics 



PROGRESS OF PHYSICS. 170 

could not be disentangled. In hydrostatics, Stevinus had 
extended and applied the discovery of Archimedes. Tor 
ricelli had proved atmospheric pressure, " by showing that 
this pressure sustained different liquids at heights inversely 
proportional to their densities ; " and Pascal " established 
the necessary diminution of this pressure at increasing 
heights in the atmosphere : " discoveries which in part 
reduced this branch of science to a quantitative form. 
Something had been done by Daniel Bernouilli towards 
the dynamics of fluids. The thermometer had been invent- 
ed ; and a number of small generalizations reached by it. 
Huyghens and Newton had made considerable progress in 
optics ; Newton had approximately calculated the rate of 
transmission of sound ; and the continental mathematicians 
had succeeded in determining some of the laws of sonorous 
vibrations. Magnetism and electricity had been consid- 
erably advanced by Gilbert. Chemistry had got as far as 
the mutual neutralization of acids and alkalies. And 
Leonardo da Vinci had advanced in geology to the con- 
ception of the deposition of marine strata as the origin 
of fossils. Our present purpose does not require that 
we should give particulars. All that it here concerns us 
to do is to illustrate the consensus subsisting in this stage 
of growth, and afterwards. Let as look at a few cases. 

The theoretic law of the velocity of sound enunciated 
by Newton on purely mechanical considerations, was found 
wrong by one-sixth. The error remained unaccounted for 
until the time of Laplace, who, suspecting that the heat 
disengaged by the compression of the undulating strata of 
the air, gave additional elasticity, and so produced the 
difference, made the needful calculations and found he was 
right. Thus acoustics was arrested until thermology over- 
took and aided it. When Boyle and Marriot had discov- 
ered the relation between the density of gases and the 
pressures they are subject to ; and when it thus became 



180 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

possible to calculate the rate of decreasing density in ihe 
upper parts of the atmosphere ; it also became possible to 
make approximate tables of the atmospheric refraction of 
light. Thus optics, and with it astronomy, advanced with 
barology. After the discovery of atmospheric pressure 
had led to the invention of the air-pump by Otto Guericke ; 
and after it had become known that evaporation increases 
in rapidity as atmospheric pressure decreases ; it became 
possible for Leslie, by evaporation in a vacuum, to produce 
the greatest cold known ; and so to extend our knowledge 
of thermology by showing that there is no zero within 
reach of our researches. When Fourier had determined 
the laws of conduction of heat, and when the Earth's tem- 
perature had been found to increase below the surface 
one degree in every forty yards, there were data for in- 
ferring the past condition of our globe ; the vast period 
it has taken to cool down to its present state; and the 
immense age of the solar system — a purely astronomical 
consideration. 

Chemistry having advanced sufficiently to supply the 
needful materials, and a physiological experiment having 
furnished the requisite hint, there came the discovery of 
galvanic electricity. Galvanism reacting on chemistry dis- 
closed the metallic bases of the alkalies, and inaugurated 
the electro-chemical theory ; in the hands of Oersted and 
Ampere it led to the laws of magnetic action ; and by its 
aid Faraday has detected significant facts relative to the 
constitution of light. Brewster's discoveries respecting 
double refraction and dipolarization proved the essential 
truth of the classification of crystalline forms according to 
the number of axes, by showing that the molecular con- 
stitution depends upon the axes. In these and in numer- 
ous other cases, the mutual influence of the sciences has 
been quite independent of any supposed hierarchical order. 
Often, tco, their inter-actions are more complex than as 



ADVANCE OF ELECTRICAL THEORY. 181 

thus instanced — involve more sciences than two. One 
illustration of this must suffice. We quote it in full from 
the History of the Inductive Sciences. In Book XL, chap. 
II., on "The Progress of the Electrical Theory," Dr 
Whewell writes : — 

" Thus at that period, mathematics was behind experiment, 
end a problem was proposed, in which theoretical results were 
wanted for comparison with observation, but could not be ac- 
curately obtained ; as was the case in astronomy also, till the time 
of the approximate solution of the problem of three bodies, and 
the consequent formation of the tables of the moon and planets, 
on the theory of universal gravitation. After some time, elec- 
trical theory was relieved from this reproach, mainly in conse- 
quence of the progress which astronomy had occasioned in pure 
mathematics. About 1801 there appeared in the Bulletin des 
Sciences, an exact solution of the problem of the distribution of 
electric fluid on a spheroid, obtained by Biot, by the application 
of the peculiar methods which Laplace had invented for the prob- 
lem of the figure of the planets. And, in 1811, M. Poisson applied 
Laplace's artifices to the case of two spheres acting upon one 
another in contact, a case to which many of Coulomb's experi- 
ments were referrible ; and the agreement of the results of 
theory and observation, thus extricated from Coulomb's num- 
bers obtained above forty years previously, was very striking and 
convincing." 

Not only do the sciences affect each other after this 
direct manner, but they affect each other indirectly. 
Where there is no dependence, there is yet analogy — 
equality of relations / and the discovery of the relations 
subsisting among one set of phenomena, constantly sug- 
gests a search for the same relations among another set. 
Thus the established fact that the force of gravitation varies 
inversely as the square of the distance, being recognized as 
a necessary characteristic of all influences proceeding from 
a centre, raised the suspicion that heat and light follow the 
same law ; which proved to be the case — a suspicion and a 



L82 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

confirmation which were repeated in respect to the electric 
and magnetic forces. Thus again the discovery of the 
polarization of light led to experiments which ended in the 
discovery of the polarization of heat — a discovery that 
could never have been made without the antecedent 
one. Thus, too, the known refrangibility of light and 
heat lately produced the inquiry whether sound also is not 
refrangible ; which on trial it turns out to be. 

In some cases, indeed, it is only by the aid of concep- 
tions derived from one class of phenomena that hypoth- 
eses respecting other classes can be formed. The theory, 
at one time favoured, that evaporation is a solution of 
water in air, was an assumption that the relation between 
water and air is like the relation between salt and water ; 
and could never have been conceived if the relation be- 
tween salt and water had not been previously known. 
Similarly the received theory of evaporation — that it is a 
diffusion of the particles of the evaporating fluid in virtue 
of their atomic repulsion — could not have been entertained 
without a foregoing experience of magnetic and electric 
repulsions. So complete in recent days has become this 
consensus among the sciences, caused either by the natural 
entanglement of their phenomena, or by analogies in the 
relations of their phenomena, that scarcely any consider- 
able discovery concerning one order of facts now takes 
place, without very shortly leading to discoveries concern- 
ing other orders. 

To produce a tolerably complete conception of this pro- 
cess of scientific evolution, it would be needful to go back 
to the beginning, and trace in detail the growth of classifi- 
cations and nomenclatures ; and to show how, as subsidiary 
to science, they have acted upon it, and it has reacted upon 
them. "We can only now remark that, on the one hand, 
classifications and nomenclatures have aided science by con- 
tinually subdividing the subject-matter of research, and giv- 



PROGRESS OF SCIENTIFIC CLASSIFICATION. 183 

ing fixity and diffusion to the truths disclosed ; and that on 
the other hand, they have caught from it that increasing 
quantitativeness, and that progress from considerations 
touching single phenomena to considerations touching the 
relations among many phenomena, which we have been de 
scribing. 

Of this last influence a few illustrations must be given. 
In chemistry it is seen in the facts, that the dividing of mat- 
ter into the four elements was ostensibly based upon the 
single property of weight ; that the first truly chemical di- 
vision into acid and alkaline bodies, grouped together bod- 
ies which had not simply one property in common, but in 
which one property was constantly related to many others ; 
and that the classification now current, places together in 
groups supporters of combustion, metallic and non-metallic 
bases, acids, salts, &c, bodies which are often quite unlike 
in sensible qualities, but which are like in the majority of 
their relations to other bodies. In mineralogy again, 
the first classifications were based upon differences in as- 
pect, texture, and other physical attributes. Berzelius 
made two attempts at a classification based solely on chem- 
ical constitution. That now current, recognises as far as 
possible the relations between physical and chemical char- 
acters. In botany the earliest classes formed were trees, 
shrubs, and herbs : magnitude being the basis of distinction. 
Dioscorides divided vegetables into aromatic, alimentary, 
medicinal, and vinous : a division of chemical character. 
Cassalpinus classified them by the seeds, and seed-vessels, 
which he preferred because of tne relations found to sub- 
sist between the character of the fructification and the 
general character of the other parts. 

While the "natural system" since developed, carrying out 
the doctrine of Linnseus, that " natural orders must be formed 
by attention not to one or two, but to all the parts of plants," 
bases its divisions on like peculiarities which are found 



184 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

to be constantly related to the greatest number of other 
like peculiarities. And similarly in zoology, the successive 
classifications, from having been originally determined by 
external and often subordinate characters not indicative of 
the essential nature, have been gradually more and more 
determined by those internal and fundamental differences, 
which have uniform relations to the greatest number of other 
differences. N~or shall we be surprised at this analogy between 
the modes of progress of positive science and classification, 
when we bear in mind that both proceed by making gener- 
alizations ; that both enable us to make previsions differing 
only in their precision ; and that while the one deals with 
equal properties and relations, the other deals with proper- 
ties and relations that approximate towards equality in var- 
iable degrees. 

Without further argument, it will, we think, be suffi- 
ciently clear that the sciences are none of them separately 
evolved — are none of them independent either logically or 
historically ; but that all of them have, in a greater or less 
degree, required aid and reciprocated it. Indeed, it needs 
but to throw aside theses, and contemplate the mixed char- 
acter of surrounding phenomena, to at once see that these 
notions of division and succession in the kinds of knowledge 
are none of them actually true, but are simple scientific 
fictions good, if regarded merely as aids to study ; bad, 
if regarded as representing realities in Nature. Considef 
them critically, and no facts whatever are presented to our 
senses uncombined with other facts — no facts whatever but 
are in some degree disguised by accompanying facts : 
disguised in such a manner that all must be partially under- 
stood before any one can be understood. If it be said, as 
by M. Comte, that gravitating force should be treated of 
before other forces, seeing that all things are subject to it, 
it may on like grounds be said that heat should be first 
dealt with ; seeing that thermal forces are everywhere in 



ITS DIVISIONS MUST ADVANCE TOGETHER. 185 

action ; that the ability of any portion of matter to mani 
fest visible gravitative phenomena depends on its state of 
aggregation, which is determined by heat ; that only by 
the aid of thermology can we explain those apparent ex- 
ceptions to the gravitating tendency which are presented 
by steam and smoke, and so establish its universality, and 
that, indeed, the very existence of the solar system in a sol- 
id form is just as much a question of heat as it is one of 
gravitation. 

Take other cases : — All phenomena recognised by the 
eyes, through which only are the data of exact science as- 
certainable, are complicated with optical phenomena ; and 
cannot be exhaustively known xmtil optical principles are 
known. The burning of a candle cannot be explained 
without involving chemistry, mechanics, thermology. 
Every wind that blows is determined by influences partly 
solar, partly lunar, partly hygrometric ; and implies con- 
siderations of fluid equilibrium and physical geography 
The direction, dip, and variations of the magnetic needle, 
are facts half terrestrial, half celestial — are caused by earth- 
ly forces which have cycles of change corresponding with 
astronomical periods. The flowing of the gulf-stream and the 
annual migration of icebergs towards the equator, depend- 
ing as they do on the balancing of the centripetal and centri- 
fugal forces acting on the ocean, involve in their explana- 
tion the Earth's rotation and spheroidal form, the laws of 
hydrostatics, the relative densities of cold and warm water, 
and the doctrines of evaporation. It is no doubt true, as 
M. Comte says, that " our position in the solar system, and 
the motions, form, size, equilibrium of the mass of our 
world among the planets, must be known before we can un- 
derstand the phenomena going on at its surface." But, fa- 
tally for his hypothesis, it is also true that we must under- 
stand a great part of the phenomena going on at its surface 
before we can know its position, &c, in the solar system 



186 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

It is not simply that, as we have already shown, those geo- 
metrical and mechanical principles by which celestial ap 
pearances are explained, were first generalized from terres- 
trial experiences ; but it is that the very obtainment of cor- 
rect data, on which to base astronomical generalizations, 
implies advanced terrestrial physics. 

Until after optics had made considerable advance, the 
Copernican system remained but a speculation. A single 
modern observation on a star has to undergo a careful anal- 
ysis by the combined aid of various sciences — has to be digest 
eel by the organism of the sciences ; which have severally 
to assimilate their respective parts of the observation, be- 
fore the essential fact it contains is available for the further 
development of astronomy. It has to be corrected not 
only for nutation of the earth's axis and for precession of 
the equinoxes, but for aberration and for refraction ; and 
the formation of the tables by which refraction is calculat- 
ed, presupposes knowledge of the law of decreasing density 
in the upper atmospheric strata ; of the law of decreasing 
temperature, and the influence of this on the density ; and of 
hygrometric laws as also affecting density. So that, to get 
materials for further advance, astronomy requires not only 
the indirect aid of the sciences which have presided over 
the making of its improved instruments, but the direct aid 
of an advanced optics, of barology, of thermology, of hy- 
grometry; and if we remember that these delicate obser- 
vations are in some cases registered electrically, and that 
they are further corrected for the " personal equation " — the 
time elapsing between seeing and registering, which varies 
with different observers — we may even add electricity and 
psychology. If, ther, so apparently simple a thing as as- 
certaining the position of a star is complicated with so 
many phenomena, it is clear that this notion of the inde- 
pendence of the sciences, or certain of them, will not hold. 

Whether objectively independent or not, they cannot 



INTERCONNECTION OF ITS BRANCHES. 187 

be subjectively so — they cannot have independence as pre- 
sented to our consciousness ; and this is the only kind of 
independence with which we are concerned. And here, 
before leaving these illustrations, and especially this last 
one, let us not omit to notice how clearly they exhibit that 
increasingly active consensus of the sciences which charac- 
terizes their advancing development. Besides finding that 
in these later times a discovery in one science commonly 
causes progress in others ; besides finding that a great part 
of the questions with which modern science deals are so mix- 
ed as to require the co-operation of many sciences for their 
solution ; we find in this last case that, to make a single good 
observation in the purest of the natural sciences, requires 
the combined assistance of half a dozen other sciences. 

Perhaps the clearest comprehension of the interconnect- 
ed growth of the sciences may be obtained by contemplat- 
ing that of the arts, to which it is strictly analogous, and 
with which it is inseparably bound up. Most intelligent 
persons must have been, at one time or other, struck with 
the vast array of antecedents pre-supposed by one of our 
processes of manufacture. Let him trace the production 
of a printed cotton, and consider all that is implied by it. 
There are the many successive improvements through 
which the power-looms reached their present perfection ; 
there is the steam-engine that drives them, having its long 
history from Papin downwards ; there are the lathes in 
which its cylinder was bored, and the string of ancestral 
lathes from which those lathes proceeded; theie is the 
steam-hammer under which its crank shaft was welded; 
there are the puddling-furnaces, the blast-furnaces, the coal- 
mines and the iron-mines needful for producing the raw 
material ; there are the slowly improved appliances by 
which the factory was built, and lighted, and ventilated ; 
there are the printing engine, and the die house, and the col- 
our laboratory with its stock of materials from all parts of 



188 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

the world, implying cochineal-culture, logwood-cutting, h* 
digo-growing ; there are the implements used by the pro- 
ducers of cotton, the gins by which it is cleaned, the elab- 
orate machines by which it is spun : there are the vessels 
in which cotton is imported, with the building-slips, the 
rope-yards, the sail-cloth factories, the anchor-forges, need- 
ful for making them ; and besides all these directly neces- 
sary antecedents, each of them involving many others, 
there are the institutions which have developed the requi- 
site intelligence, the printing and publishing arrangements 
which have spread the necessary information, the social or- 
ganization which has rendered possible such a complex co- 
operation of agencies. 

Further analysis would show that the many arts thus 
concerned in the economical production of a child's frock, 
have each of them been brought to its present efficiency 
by slow steps which the other arts have aided ; and that 
from the beginning this reciprocity has been ever on the 
increase. It needs but on the one hand to consider how 
utterly impossible it is for the savage, eA 7 en with ore and 
coal ready, to produce so simple a thing as an iron hatchet ; 
and then to consider, on the other hand, that it would have 
been impracticable among ourselves, even a century ago, 
to raise the tubes of the Britannia bridge from lack of the 
hydraulic press; to at once see how mutually dependent 
are the arts, and how all must advance that each may ad- 
vance. Well, the sciences are involved with each other 
in just the same manner. They are, in fact, inextricably 
woven into this same complex web of the arts ; and are 
only conventionally independent of it. Originally the two 
were one. How to fix the religious festivals ; when to sow : 
how to weigh commodities ; and in what manner to meas- 
ure ground ; were the purely practical questions out of 
which arose astronomy, mechanics, geometry. Since then 
there has been a perpetual inosculation of the sciences and 



INTERDEPENDENCE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 189 

the arts. Science lias been supplying art with truer generali 
zations and more completely quantitative previsions. Art has 
been supplying science with better materials and more per- 
fect instruments. And all along the interdependence has been 
growing closer, not only between art and science, but among 
the arts themselves, and among the sciences themselves. 

How completely the analogy holds throughout, becomes 
yet clearer when we recognise the fact that the sciences are 
arts to each other. If, as occurs in almost every case, the 
fact to be analyzed by any science, has first to be prepared 
— to be disentangled from disturbing facts by the afore 
discovered methods of other sciences ; the other sciences 
so used, stand in the position of arts. If, in solving a dyna- 
mical problem, a parallelogram is drawn, of which the sides 
and diagonal represent forces, and by putting magnitudes 
of extension for magnitudes of force a measurable relation 
is established between quantities not else to be dealt with ; 
it may be fairly said that geometry plays towards mechan- 
ics much the same part that the fire of the founder plays 
towards the metal he is going to cast. If, in analyzing the 
phenomena of the coloured rings surrounding the point of 
contact between two lenses, a Newton ascertains by calcu- 
lation the amount of certain interposed spaces, far too mi- 
nute for actual measurement ; he employs the science of 
number for essentially the same purpose as that for which 
the watchmaker employs tools. If, before writing down 
his observation on a star, the astronomer has to separate 
from it all the errors resulting from atmospheric and optical 
laws, it is manifest that the refraction-tables, and logarithm- 
books, and formulae, which he successively uses, serve him 
much as retorts, and filters, and cupels serve the assayer 
who wishes to separate the pure gold from all accompany- 
ing ingredients. 

So close, indeed, is the relationship, that it is impossi- 
ble to say where science begins and art ends. All the in- 



190 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

struments of the natural philosopher are the products of 
art ; the adjusting one of them for use is an art ; there is 
art in making an observation with one of them ; it requires 
art properly to treat the facts ascertained ; nay, even the 
employing established generalizations to open the way to 
new generalizations, may be considered as art. In each of 
these cases previously organized knowledge becomes the 
implement by which new knowledge is got at : and whether 
that previously organized knowledge is embodied in a tan- 
gible apparatus or in a formula, matters not in so far as its 
essential relation to the new knowledge is concerned. If, 
as no one will deny, art is applied knowledge, then such 
portion of a scientific investigation as consists of applied 
knowledge is art. So that we may even say that as soon 
as any prevision in science passes out of its originally pas- 
sive state, and is employed for reaching other previsions, 
it passes from theory into practice — becomes science in ac- 
tion — becomes art. And when we thus see how purely 
conventional is the ordinary distinction, how impossible it 
is to make any real separation — when we see not only that 
science and art were originally one ; that the arts have 
perpetually assisted each other ; that there has been a con- 
stant reciprocation of aid between the sciences and arts ; 
but that the sciences act as arts to each other, and that the 
established part of each science becomes an art to the 
growing part — when we recognize the closeness of these 
associations, we shall the more clearly perceive that as the 
connexion of the arts with each other has been ever be- 
coming more intimate ; as the help given by sciences to 
arts and by arts to sciences, has been age by age increas- 
ing ; so the interdependence of the sciences themselves has 
been ever growing greater, their mutual relations more in- 
volved, their consensus more active. 

In here ending our sketch of the Genesis of Science, we 



DIFFICULTIES IN TREATING THE SUBJECT. 191 

are conscious of having done the subject but scant justice. 
Two difficulties have stood in our way : one, the having to 
touch on so many points in such small space ; the other, 
the necessity of treating in serial arrangement a process 
which is not serial— a difficulty which must ever attend all 
attempts to delineate processes of development, whatever 
their special nature. Add to which, that to present in any- 
thing like completeness and proportion, even the outlines 
of so vast and complex a history, demands years of study. 
Nevertheless, we believe that the evidence which has been 
assigned suffices to substantiate the leading propositions 
with which we set out. Inquiry into the first stages of 
science confirms the conclusion which we drew from the 
analysis of science as now existing, that it is not distinct 
from common knowledge, but an outgrowth from it — an 
extension of the perception by means of the reason. 

That which we further found by analysis to form the 
more specific characteristic of scientific previsions, as con- 
trasted with the previsions of uncultured intelligence — their 
quantitativeness — we also see to have been the character- 
istic alike in the initial steps in science, and of all the steps 
succeeding them. The facts and admissions cited in dis- 
proof of the assertion that the sciences follow one another, 
both logically and historically, in the order of their de- 
creasing generality, have been enforced by the sundry in- 
stances we have met with, in which the more general or 
abstract sciences have been advanced only at the instiga- 
tion of the more special or concrete — instances serving to 
show that a more general science as much owes its progress 
to the presentation of new problems by a more specia 7 
science, as the more special science owes its progress to 
the solutions which the more general science is thus led to 
attempt — instances therefore illustrating the position that 
scientific advance is as much from the special to the general 
as from the general to the special. 
10 



192 THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

Quite in harmony with this position we find to be the 
admissions that the sciences are as branches of one trunk, 
and that they were at first cultivated simultaneously ; and 
this harmony becomes the more marked on finding, as we 
have done, not only that the sciences have a common root, 
but that science in general has a common root with lan- 
guage, classification, reasoning, art ; that throughout civili- 
zation these have advanced together, acting and reacting 
upon each other just as the separate sciences have done ; 
and that thus the development of intelligence in all its di- 
visions and subdivisions has conformed to this same law 
which we have shown that the sciences conform to. From 
all which we may perceive that the sciences can with no 
greater propriety be arranged in a succession, than language, 
classification, reasoning, art, and science, can be arranged 
in a succession; that, however needful a succession may be 
for the convenience of books and catalogues, it must be 
recognized merely as a convention; and that so far from its 
being the function of a philosophy of the sciences to estab- 
lish a hierarchy, it is its function to show that the linear 
arrangements required for literary purposes, have none of 
them any basis either in Nature or History. 

There is one further remark we must not omit — a re- 
mark touching the importance of the question that has been 
discussed. Unfortunately it commonly happens that topics 
of this abstract nature are slighted as of no practical mo- 
ment ; and, we doubt not, that many will think it of very 
little consequence what theory respecting the genesis of 
Bcience may be entertained. But the value of truths is of- 
ten great, in proportion as their generality is wide. Re- 
mote as they seem from practical application, the highest 
generalizations are not unfrequently the most potent in 
their effects, in virtue of their influence on all those subor 
dinate generalizations which regulate practice. And it must 
be so here. Whenever established, a correct theory of the 



EDUCATIONAL BEAKING-S OF THE DISCUSSION. 193 

Historical development of the sciences must have an immense 
effect upon education ; and, through education, upon civili- 
zation. Greatly as we differ from him in other respects, 
we agree with M. Comte in the belief that, rightly conduct- 
ed, the education of the individual must have a certain cor- 
respondence with the evolution of the race. 

No one can contemplate the facts we have cited in illus- 
tration of the early stages of science, without recognising 
the necessity of the processes through which those stagea 
were reached — a necessity which, in respect to the leading 
truths, may likewise be traced in all after stages. This ne- 
cessity, originating in the very nature of the phenomena to 
be analyzed and the faculties to be employed, more or less 
fully applies to the mind of the child as to that of the sav- 
age. We say more or less fully, because the correspondence 
is not special but general only. Were the environment the 
same in both cases, the correspondence would be complete. 
But though the surrounding material out of which science ia 
to be organized, is, in many cases, the same to the juvenile 
mind and the aboriginal mind, it is not so throughout ; as, 
for instance, in the case of chemistry, the phenomena of 
which are accessible to the one, but were inaccessible to 
the other. Hence, in proportion as the environment differs, 
the course of evolution must differ. After admitting sun- 
dry exceptions, however, there remains a substantial par- 
allelism ; and, if so, it becomes of great moment to ascer- 
tain what really has been the process of scientific evolution. 
The establishment of an erroneous theory must be disas- 
trous in its educational results ; while the establishment of 
a true one must eventually be fertile in school-reforms and 
consequent social benefits. 



IT. 

THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LAUGHTER. 



TTTHY do we smile when a child puts on a man's hat ? 
V V or what induces us to laugh on reading that the 
corpulent Gibbon was unable to rise from his knees after 
making a tender declaration ? The usual reply to such 
questions is, that laughter results from a perception of in- 
congruity. Even were there not on this reply the obvious 
criticism that laughter often occurs from extreme pleasure 
or from mere vivacity, there would still remain the real 
problem — How comes a sense of the incongruous to be 
followed by these peculiar bodily actions ? Some have al- 
leged that laughter is due to the pleasure of a relative self- 
elevation, which we feel on seeing the humiliation of others. 
But this theory, whatever portion of truth it may contain, 
is, in the first place, open to the fatal objection, that there 
are various humiliations to others which produce in us any- 
thing but laughter ; and, in the second place, it does not 
apply to the many instances in which no one's dignity is 
implicated : as when we laugh at a good pun. Moreover, 
like the other, it is merely a generalization of certain con- 
ditions to laughter ; and not an explanation of the odd 
movements which occur under these conditions. Why, 
when greatly delighted, or impressed with certain unex- 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF REFLEX ACTION. 195 

pected contrasts of ideas, should there be a contraction of 
particular facial muscles, and particular muscles of the 
chest and abdomen ? Such answer to this question as may 
be possible, can be rendered only by physiology. 

Every child has made the attempt to hold the foot still 
while it is tickled, and has failed ; and probably there is 
scarcely any one who has not vainly tried to avoid wink- 
ing, when a hand has been suddenly passed before the eyes. 
These examples of muscular movements which occur inde- 
pendently of the will, or in spite of it, illustrate what phy- 
siologists call reflex-action ; as likewise do sneezing and 
coughing. To this class of cases, in which involuntary 
motions are accompanied by sensations, has to be added 
another class of cases, in which involuntary motions are 
unaccompanied by sensations : — instance the pulsations of 
the heart ; the contractions of the stomach during diges- 
tion. Further, the great mass of seemingly-voluntary acts 
in such creatures as insects, worms, molluscs, are consid- 
ered by physiologists to be as purely automatic as is the 
dilatation or closure of the iris under variations in quantity 
of light ; and similarly exemplify the law, that an impres- 
sion on the end of an afferent nerve is conveyed to some 
ganglionic centre, and is thence usually reflected along an 
efferent nerve to one or more muscles which it causes to 
contract. 

In a modified form this principle holds with voluntary 
acts. Nervous excitation always tends to beget muscular 
motion ; and when it rises to a certain intensity, always 
does beget it. Not only in reflex actions, whether with or 
without sensation, do we see that special nerves, when 
raised to a state of tension, discharge themselves on special 
muscles with which they are indirectly connected ; but 
those external actions through which we read the feelings 
of others, show us that under any considerable tension, the 



196 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LATTGHTEK. 

nervous system in general discharges itself on the muscular 
system in general : either with or without the guidance of 
the will. The shivering produced by cold, implies irregular 
muscular contractions, which, though at first only partly 
involuntary, become, when the cold is extreme, almost 
wholly involuntary. "When you have severely burnt your 
finger, it is very difficult to preserve a dignified composure : 
contortion of face, or movement of limb, is pretty sure to 
follow. If a man receives good news with neither change 
of feature nor bodily motion, it is inferred that he is not 
much pleased, or that he has extraordinary self-control — ■ 
either inference implying that joy almost universally pro- 
duces contraction of the muscles ; and so, alters the ex- 
pression, or attitude, or both. And when we hear of the 
feats of strength which men have performed when then- 
lives were at stake — when we read how, in the energy of 
despair, even paralytic patients have regained for a time 
the use of their limbs ; we see still more clearly the rela- 
tions between nervous and muscular excitements. It be- 
comes manifest both that emotions and sensations tend to 
generate bodily movements, and that the movements are 
vehement in proportion as the emotions or sensations are 
intense.* 

This, however, is not the sole direction in which ner- 
vous excitement expends itself. Viscera as well as muscles 
may receive the discharge. That the heart and blood- 
vessels (which, indeed, being all contractile, may in a re- 
stricted sense be classed with the muscular system) are 
quickly affected by pleasures and pains, we have daily 
proved to us. Every sensation of any acuteness acceler- 
ates the pulse ; and how sensitive the heai't is to emotions, 
is testified by the familiar expressions which use heart and 

* For numerous illustrations see essay on " The Origin and Function 
of Music." 






DISCHARGE OF NERVOUS EXCITEMENT. 197 

feeling as convertible terms. Similarly with the digestive 
organs. Without detailing the various ways in which these 
may be influenced by our mental states, it suffices to men- 
tion the marked benefits derived by dyspeptics, as well as 
other invalids, from cheerful society, welcome news, change 
of scene, to show how pleasurable feeling stimulates th 
viscera in general into greater activity. 

There is still another direction in which any excited 
portion of the nervous system may discharge itself; and a 
direction in which it usually does discharge itself when the 
excitement is not strong. It may pass on the stimulus to 
some other portion of the nervous system. This is what 
occurs in quiet thinking and feeling. The successive states 
which constitute consciousness, result from this. Sensa- 
tions excite ideas and emotions ; these in their turns arouse 
other ideas and emotions ; and so, continuously. That is 
to say, the tension existing in particular nerves, or groups 
of nerves, when they yield us certain sensations, ideas, or 
emotions, generates an equivalent tension in some other 
nerves, or groups of nerves, with which there is a connex- 
ion : the flow of energy passing on, the one idea or feeling 
dies in producing the next. 

Thus, then, while we are totally unable to comprehend 
how the excitement of certain nerves should generate feel- 
ing — while, in the production of consciousness by physical 
agents acting on physical structure, we come to an abso- 
lute mystery never to be solved ; it is yet quite possible 
for us to know by observation what are the successive 
forms which this absolute mystery may take. We see that 
there are three channels along which nerves in a state of 
tension may discharge themselves ; or rather, I should say, 
three classes of channels. They may pass on the excite- 
ment to other nerves that have no direct connexions with 
the bodily members, and may so cause other feelings and 
ideas ; or they may pass on the excitement to one or more 



L98 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LAUGHTEK. 

motor nerves, and so cause muscular contractions ; or they 
may pass on the excitement to nerves which supply the vis- 
cera, and may so stimulate one or more of these. 

For simplicity's sake, I have described these as alterna- 
tive routes, one or other of which any current of nerve- 
force must take ; thereby, as it may be thought, implying 
that such current will be exclusively confined to some one 
of them. But this is by no means the case. Rarely, if 
ever, does it happen that a state of nervous tension, present 
to consciousness as a feeling, expends itself in one direction 
only. Very generally it may be observed to expend itself 
in two ; and it is probable that the discharge is never abso- 
lutely absent from any one of the three. There is, how- 
ever, variety in the proportions in which the discharge is 
divided among these different channels under different cir- 
cumstances. In a man whose fear impels him to run, the 
mental tension generated is only in part transformed into a 
muscular stimulus : there is a surplus which causes a rapid 
current of ideas. An agreeable state of feeling produced, 
say by praise, is not wholly used up in arousing the suc- 
ceeding phase of the feeling, and the new ideas appropriate 
to it ; but a certain portion overflows into the visceral ner- 
vous system, increasing the action of the heart, and proba- 
bly facilitating digestion. And here we come upon a class 
of considerations and facts which open the way to a solu- 
tion of our special problem. 

For starting with the unquestionable truth, that at any 
moment the existing quantity of liberated nerve-force, 
which in an inscrutable way produces in us the state we 
call feeling, must expend itself in some direction — must 
generate an equivalent manifestation of force somewhere — 
it clearly follows that, if of the several channels it may 
take, one is wholly or partially closed, more must be taken 
by the others ; or that if two are closed, the discharge 
along the remaining one must be more intense ; and that, 



WHY SILENT GRIEF IS THE DEEPEST GEIEF. 199 

conversely, should anything determine an unusual efflux in 
one direction, there will be a diminished efflux in other di- 
rections. 

Daily experience illustrates these conclusions. It is 
commonly remarked, that the suppression of external signs 
of feeling, makes feeling more intense. The deepest grief 
is silent grief. "Why ? Because the nervous excitement 
not discharged in muscular action, discharges itself in other 
nervous excitements — arouses more numerous and more 
remote associations of melancholy ideas, and so increases 
the mass of feelings. People who conceal their anger are 
habitually found to be more revengeful than those who ex- 
plode in loud speech and vehement action. Why ? Be- 
cause, as before, the emotion is reflected back, accumulates, 
and intensifies. Similarly, men who, as proved by their 
powers of representation, have the keenest appreciation of 
the comic, are usually able to do and say the most ludi- 
crous things with perfect gravity. 

On the other hand, all are familiar with the truth that 
bodily activity deadens emotion. Under great irritation 
we get relief by walking about rapidly. Extreme effort in 
the bootless attempt to achieve a desired end, greatly di- 
minishes the intensity of the desire. Those who are forced 
to exert themselves after misfortunes, do not suffer nearly 
so much as those who remain quiescent. If any one wishes 
to check intellectual excitement, he cannot choose a more 
efficient method than running till he is exhausted. More- 
over, these cases, in which the production of feeling and 
thought is hindered by determining the nervous energy 
towards bodily movements, have their counterparts in the 
cases in which bodily movements are hindered by extra 
absorption of nervous energy in sudden thoughts and feel- 
ings. If, when walking along, there flashes on you an idea 
that creates great surprise, hope, or alarm, you stop ; or if 
sitting cross-legged, swinging your pendent foot, the move- 



200 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LAUGHTEE. 

meut is at once arrested. From the viscera, too, intense 
mental action abstracts energy. Joy, disappointment, anx 
iety, or any moral perturbation rising to a great height, 
will destroy appetite ; or if food has been taken, will arrest 
digestion ; and even a purely intellectual activity, when 
extreme, will do the like. 

Facts, then, fully bear out these d priori inferences, 
that the nervous excitement at any moment present to 
consciousness as feeling, must expend itself in some way or 
other ; that of the three classes of channels open to it, it 
must take one, two, or more, according to circumstances ; 
that the closure or obstruction of one, must increase the 
discharge through the others ; and conversely, that if to 
answer some demand, the efflux of nervous energy in one 
direction is unusually great, there must be a corresponding 
decrease of the efflux in other directions. Setting out 
from these premises, let us now see what interpretation is 
to be put on the phenomena of laughter. 

That laughter is a display of muscular excitement, and 
so illustrates the general law that feeling passing a certain 
pitch habitually vents itself in bodily action, scarcely needs 
pointing out. It perhaps needs pointing out, however, 
that strong feeling of almost any kind produces this result. 
It is not a sense of the ludicrous, only, which does it ; nor 
are the various forms of joyous emotion the sole additional 
causes. We have, besides, the sardonic laughter and the 
hysterical laughter, which result from mental distress ; to 
which must be added certain sensations, as tickling, and, 
according to Mr. Bain, cold, and some kinds of acute pain. 

Strong feeling, mental or physical, being, then, the gen- 
eral cause of laughter, we have to note that the muscular 
actions constituting it are distinguished from most others 
by this, that they are purposeless. In general, bodily mo- 
tions that are prompted by feelings are directed to special 



WHY WE LAUGH WITH THE ORGANS OF SPEECH. 201 

ends ; as when we try to escape a danger, or struggle tc 
secure a gratification. But the movements of chest and 
limbs which we make when laughing have no object. And 
now remark that these quasi-convulsive contractions of the 
muscles, having no object, but being results of an uncon- 
trolled discharge of energy, we may see whence arise their 
special characters — how it happens that certain classes of 
muscles are affected first, and then certain other classes. 
For an overflow of nerve-force, undirected by any motive, 
will manifestly take first the most habitual routes ; and if 
these do not suffice, will next overflow into the less habit- 
ual ones. Well, it is through the organs of speech that 
feeling passes into movement with the greatest frequency. 
The jaws, tongue, and lips are used not only to express 
strong irritation or gratification ; but that very moderate 
flow of mental energy which accompanies ordinary conver- 
sation, finds its chief vent through this channel. Hence it 
happens that certain muscles round the mouth, small and 
easy to move, are the first to contract under pleasurable 
emotion. The class of muscles which, next after those of 
articulation, are most constantly set in action (or extra ac- 
tion, we should say) by feelings of all kinds, are those of 
respiration. Under pleasurable or painful sensations we 
breathe more rapidly : possibly as a consequence of the in- 
creased demand for oxygenated blood. The sensations 
that accompany exertion also bring on hard-breathing ; 
which here more evidently responds to the physiological 
needs. And emotions, too, agreeable and disagreeable, 
both, at first, excite respiration ; though the last subse- 
quently depress it. That is to say, of the bodily muscles, 
the respiratory are more constantly implicated than any 
others in those various acts which our feelings impel us to ; 
and, hence, when there occurs an undirected discharge of 
nervous energy into the muscular system, it happens that, 
if the quantity be considerable, it convulses not only cer- 



202 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LAUGHTER. 

tain of the articulatory and vocal muscles, but also those 
which expel air from the lungs. 

Should the feeling to be expended be still greater in 
amount — too great to find vent in these classes of musclea 
— another class comes into play. The upper limbs are set 
in motion. Children frequently clap their hands in glee ; 
by some adults the hands are rubbed together ; and others, 
under still greater intensity of delight, slap their knees and 
sway their bodies backwards and forwards. Last of all, 
when the other channels for the escape of the surplus nerve- 
force have been filled to overflowing, a yet further and less- 
used group of muscles is spasmodically affected : the head 
is thrown back and the spine bent inwards — there is a slight 
degree of what medical men call opisthotonos. Thus, then, 
without contending that the phenomena of laughter in all 
their details are to be so accounted for, we see that in their 
ensemble they conform to these general principles : — that 
feeling excites to muscular action ; that when the muscular 
action is unguided by a purpose, the muscles first affected 
are those which feeling most habitually stimulates ; and 
that as the feeling to be expended increases in quantity, it 
excites an increasing number of muscles, in a succession 
determined by the relative frequency with which they re- 
spond to the regulated dictates of feeling. 

There still, however, remains the question with which 
we set out. The explanation here given applies only to the 
laughter produced by acute pleasure or pain : it does not 
apply to the laughter that follows certain perceptions of 
incongruity. It is an insufficient explanation that in these 
cases, laughter is a result of the pleasure we take in es- 
caping from the restraint of grave feelings. That this is a 
part-cause is true. Doubtless very often, as Mr. Bain says, 
14 it is the coerced form of seriousness and solemnity with- 
out the reality that gives us that stiff position from which 
a contact with triviality or vulgarity relieves us, to our up 



EFFECT OF INCONGRUOUS PERCETTIONS. 203 

roarious delight." And in so far as mirth is caused by the 
gush of agreeable feeling that follows the cessation of men- 
tal strain, it further illustrates the general principle above 
set forth. But no explanation is thus afforded of the mirth 
which ensues when the short silence between the andante 
and allegro in one of Beethoven's symphonies, is broken by 
a loud sneeze. In this, and hosts of like cases, the mental 
tension is not coerced but spontaneous — not disagreeable 
but agreeable ; and the coming impressions to which the 
attention is directed, promise a gratification that few, if 
any, desire to escape. Hence, when the unlucky sneeze 
occurs, it cannot be that the laughter of the audience is 
due simply to the release from an irksome attitude of 
mind : some other cause must be sought. 

This cause we shall arrive at by carrying our analysis a 
step further. We have but to consider the quantity of feel- 
ing that exists under such circumstances, and then to ask 
what are the conditions that determine the direction of its 
discharge, to at once reach a solution. Take a case. You 
are sitting in a theatre, absorbed in the progress of an in- 
teresting drama. Some climax has been reached which 
has aroused your sympathies — say, a reconciliation between 
the hero and heroine, after long and painful misunderstand- 
ing. The feelings excited by this scene are not of a kind 
from which you seek relief; but are, on the contrary, a 
grateful relief from the painful feelings with which you 
have witnessed the previous estrangement. Moreover, the 
sentiments these fictitious personages have for the moment 
inspired you with, are not such as would lead you to re- 
joice in any indignity offered to them ; but rather, such as 
would make you resent tbe ; ja dignity. And now, while 
you are contemplating the reconciliation with a pleasurable 
sympathy, there appears from behind the scenes a tame 
kid, which, having stared round at the audience, walks up 
to the lovers and sniffs at them. You cannot help joining 



204 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LAUGHTER. 

in the roar which greets this contretemps. Inexplicable as 
is this irresistible burst on the hypothesis of a pleasure in 
escaping from mental restraint ; or on the hypothesis of a 
pleasure from relative increase of self-importance, when 
witnessing the humiliation of others ; it is readily explica- 
ble if we consider what, in such a case, must become of the 
feeling that existed at the moment the incongruity arose. 
A large mass of emotion had been produced ; or, to speak 
in physiological language, a large portion of the nervous 
system was in a state of tension. There was also great 
expectation with respect to the further evolution of the 
scene — a quantity of vague, nascent thought and emotion, 
into which the existing quantity of thought and emotion 
was about to pass. 

Had there been no interruption, the body of new ideas 
and feelings next excited, would have sufficed to absorb 
the whole of the liberated nervous energy. But now, this 
large amount of nervous energy, instead of being allowed 
to expend itself in producing an equivalent amount of the 
new thoughts and emotions which were nascent, is suddenly 
checked in its flow. The channels along which the dis- 
charge was about to take place, are closed. The new chan- 
nel opened — that afforded by the appearance and proceed- 
ings of the kid — is a small one ; the ideas and feelings 
suggested are not numerous and massive enough to carry 
off the nervous energy to be expended. The excess must 
therefore discharge itself in some other direction ; and 
in the way already explained, there results an efflux 
through the motor nerves to various classes of the mus- 
cles, producing the half-convulsive actions we term 
laughter. 

This explanation is in harmony with the fact, that when, 
among several persons who witness the same ludicrous 
occurrence, there are some who do not laugh ; it is because 
there has arisen in them an emotion not participated in by 



DISCHARGE OF ARRESTED FEELINGS. 205 

the rest, and which is sufficiently massive to absorb all the 
nascent excitement. Among the spectators of an awkward 
tumble, those who preserve their gravity are those in whom 
there .is excited a degree of sympathy with the sufferer, 
sufficiently great to serve as an outlet for the feeling which 
the occurrence had turned out of its previous course. 
Sometimes anger carries off the arrested current ; and so 
prevents laughter. An instance of this was lately furnished 
me by a friend who had been witnessing the feats at 
Franconi's. A tremendous leap had just been made by an 
acrobat over a number of horses. The clown, seemingly 
envious of this success, made ostentatious preparation for 
doing the like ; and then, taking the preliminary run with 
immense energy, stopped short on reaching the first horse, 
and pretended to wipe some dust from its haunches. In the 
majority of the spectators, merriment was excited ; but in 
my friend, wound up by the expectation of the coming leap 
to a state of great nervous tension, the effect of the baulk 
was to produce indignation. Experience thus proves 
what the theory implies : namely, that the discharge of 
arrested feelings into the muscular system, takes place 
only in the absence of other adequate channels — does not 
take place if there arise other feelings equal in amount to 
those arrested. 

Evidence still more conclusive is at hand. If we con- 
trast the incongruities which produce laughter with those 
which do not, we at once see that in the non-ludicrous ones 
the unexpected state of feeling aroused, though wholly 
different in kind, is not less in quantity or intensity. 
Among incongruities that may excite anything but a laugh, 
Mr. Bain instances — " A decrepit man under a heavy bur- 
den, five loaves and two fishes among a multitude, and all 
unfitness and gross disproportion ; an instrument out of 
tune, a ily in ointment, snow in May, Archimedes studying 
geometry in a siege, and all discordant things ; a w r olf in 



206 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LATTGHTEK. 



eral ; the multitude taking the law in their own hands, 
and everything of the nature of disorder ; a corpse at a 
feast, parental cruelty, filial ingratitude, and whatever ia 
unnatural ; the entire catalogue of the vanities given by 
Solomon, are all incongruous, but they cause feelings of 
pain, anger, sadness, loathing, rather than mirth." Now 
in these cases, where the totally unlike state of conscious- 
ness suddenly produced, is not inferior in mass to the 
preceding one, the conditions to laughter are not ful- 
filled. As above shown, laughter naturally results only 
when consciousness is unawares transferred from great 
things to small — only when there is what we call a descend- 
ing incongruity. 

And now observe, finally, the fact, alike inferable a 
priori and illustrated in experience, that an ascending 
incongruity not only fails to cause laughter, but works on 
the muscular system an effect of exactly the reverse kind. 
When after something very insignificant there arises with- 
out anticipation something very great, the emotion we call 
wonder results ; and this emotion is accompanied not by 
an excitement of the muscles, but by a relaxation of them. 
In children and country people, that falling of the jaw 
which occurs on witnessing something that is imposing and 
unexpected, exemplifies this effect. Persons who have 
been wonder-struck at the production of very striking 
results by a seemingly inadequate cause, are frequently 
described as unconsciously dropping the things they held 
in their hands. Such are just the effects to be anticipated. 
After an average state of consciousness, absorbing but a 
small quantity of nervous energy, is aroused without the 
slightest notice, a strong emotion of awe, terror, or admi- 
ration; joined with the astonishment due to an apparent 
want of adequate causation. This new state of conscious- 
ness demands far more nervous energy than that which it 



VARIOUS CHANNELS OF NEKVOUS DISCHARGE. 207 

has suddenly replaced ; and this increased absorption of 
nervous energy in mental changes, involves a temporary 
diminution of the outflow in other directions : whence the 
pendent jaw and the relaxing grasp. 

One further observation is worth making. Among the 
several sets of channels into which surplus feeling might be 
dischai-ged, wa3 named the nervous system of the viscera. 
The sudden overflow of an arrested mental excitement, 
which, as we have seen, results from a descending incon- 
gruity, must doubtless stimulate not only the muscular sys- 
tem, as we see it does, but also the internal organs ; the 
heart and stomach must come in for a share of the dis- 
charge. And thus there seems to be a good physiological 
basis for the popular notion that mirth-creating excitement 
facilitates digestion. 

Though in dohig so I go beyond the boundaries of 
the immediate topic, I may fitly point out that the method 
of inquiry here followed, is one which enables us to 
understand various phenomena besides those of laugh- 
ter. To show the importance of pursuing it, I will in- 
dicate the explanation it furnishes of another familiar class 
of facts. 

All know how generally a large amount of emotion dis- 
turbs the action of the intellect, and interferes with the 
power of expression. A speech delivered with great 
facility to tables and chairs, is by no means so easily deliv- 
ered to an audience. Every schoolboy can testify that his 
trepidation, when standing before a master, has often dis- 
abled him from repeating a lesson which he had duly 
learnt. In explanation of this we commonly say that the 
attention is distracted — that the proper train of ideas is 
broken by the intrusion of ideas that are irrelevant. But 
the question is, in what manner does unusual emotion 
produce this effect; and we are here supplied with a 



208 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LAUGHTER. 

tolerably obvious answer. The repetition of a lesson, or 
set speech previously thought out, implies the flow of a 
very moderate amount of nervous excitement through a 
comparatively narrow channel. The thing to be done is 
simply to call up in succession certain previously-arranged 
ideas — a process in which no great amount of mental 
energy is expended. Hence, when there is a large quantity 
of emotion, which must be discharged in some direction or 
other ; and when, as usually happens, the restricted series 
of intellectual actions to be gone through, does not suffice 
to carry it off; there result discharges along other channels 
besides the one prescribed : there are aroused various 
ideas foreign to the train of thought to be pursued ; and 
these tend to exclude from consciousness those which 
should occupy it. 

And now observe the meaning of those bodily actions 
spontaneously set up under these circumstances. The 
school-boy saying his lesson, commonly has his fingers 
actively engaged — perhaps in twisting about a broken pen, 
or perhaps squeezing the angle of his jacket ; and if told to 
keep his hands still, he soon again falls into the same or a 
similar trick. Many anecdotes are current of public speak- 
ers having incurable automatic actions of this class : barris- 
ters who perpetually wound and unwound pieces of tape ; 
members of parliament ever putting on and taking off their 
spectacles. So long as such movements are unconscious, 
they facilitate the mental actions. At least this seems a 
fair inference from the fact that confusion frequently re- 
sults from putting a stop to them : witness the case nar- 
rated by Sir Walter Scott of his school-fellow, who became 
unable to say his lesson after the removal of the waistcoat- 
button that he habitually fingered while in class. But 
why do they facilitate the mental actions ? Clearly be- 
cause they draw off a portion of the surplus nervous 
excitement. If, as above explained, the quantity of men- 



MUSCULAR MOVEMENT AND MENTAL ACTION. 209 

tal energy generated is greater than can find vent along 
the narrow channel of thought that is open to it ; and if, 
in consequence, it is apt to produce confusion by rushing 
into other channels of thought ; then by allowing it an 
exit through the motor nerves into the muscular system, 
the pressure is diminished, and irrelevant ideas are less 
likely to intrude on consciousness. 

This further illustration will, I think, justify the posi- 
tion that something may be achieved by pursuing in other 
cases this method of psychological inquiry. A complete 
explanation of the phenomena, requires us to trace out 
all the consequences of any given state of conscious- 
ness ; and we cannot do this without studying the effects, 
bodily and mental, as varying in quantity at each other's 
expense. We should probably learn much if we in 
every case asked — Where is all the nervous energy 
gone ? 



V. 
THE ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC 



"TXT" HEN Carlo, standing, chained to his kennel, sees 
VV his master in the distance, a slight motion of the 
tail indicates his but faint hope that he is about to be let 
out. A much more decided wagging of the tail, passing 
by-and-by into lateral undulations of the body, follows his 
master's nearer approach. When hands are laid on his 
collar, and he knows that he is really to have an outing, 
his jumping and wriggling are such that it is by no means 
easy to loose his fastenings. And when he finds himself 
actually free, his joy expends itself in bounds, in pirouettes, 
and in scourings hither and thither at the top of his speed, 
Puss, too, by erecting her tail, and by every time raising 
her back to meet the caressing hand of her mistress, 
similarly expresses her gratification by certain muscular 
actions ; as likewise do the parrot by awkward dancing 
on his perch, and the canary by hopping and fluttering 
about his cage with unwonted rapidity. Under emotions 
of an opposite kind, animals equally display muscular 
excitement. The enraged lion lashes his sides with his 
tail, knits his brows, protrudes his claws. The cat sets 
up her back ; the dog retracts his upper lip ; the horse 
throws back his ears. And in the struggles of creatures 
in pain, we see that the like relation holds between ex- 



EMOTION PEODTTCES ACTION. 211 

citement of the muscles and excitement of the nerves of 
sensation. 

In ourselves, distinguished from lower creatures as we 
are by feelings alike more powerful and more varied, 
parallel facts are at once more conspicuous and more nu- 
merous. We may conveniently look at them in groups. 
We shall find that pleasurable sensations and painful sen- 
sations, pleasurable emotions and painful emotions, all 
tend to produce active demonstrations in proportion to 
their intensity. 

In children, and even in adults who are not restrained 
by regard for appearances, a highly agreeable taste is 
followed by a smacking of the lips. An infant will laugh 
and bound in its nurse's arms at the sight of a brilliant 
colour or the hearing of a new sound. People are apt to 
beat time with head or feet to music which particularly 
pleases them. In a sensitive person an agreeable perfume 
will produce a smile ; and smiles will be seen on the faces 
of a crowd gazing at some splendid burst of fireworks. 
Even the pleasant sensation of warmth felt on getting to 
the fireside out of a winter's storm, will similarly express 
itself in the face. 

Painful sensations, being mostly far more intense than 
pleasurable ones, cause muscular actions of a much more 
decided kind. A sudden twinge produces a convulsive 
start of the whole body. A pain less violent, but con- 
tinuous, is accompanied by a knitting of the brows, a set- 
ting of the teeth or biting of the lip, and a contrac- 
tion of the features generally. Under a persistent pain 
of a severer kind, other muscular actions are added : 
the body is swayed to and fro ; the hands clench any- 
thing they can lay hold of; and should the agony rise 
still higher, the sufferer rolls about on the floor almost con 
mlsed. 

Though more varied, the natural language of the pleas- 



212 THE OEIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC. 

livable emotions comes within the same generalization. A 
smile, which is the commonest expression of gratified feel- 
ing, is a contraction of certain facial muscles ; and when 
the smile broadens into a laugh, we see a more violent and 
more general muscular excitement produced by an intenser 
gratification. Rubbing together of the hands, and that 
other motion which Dickens somewhere describes as 
" washing with impalpable soap in invisible water," have 
like implications. Children may often be seen to "jump 
for joy." Even in adults of excitable temperament, an 
action approaching to it is sometimes witnessed. And 
dancing has all the world through been regarded as natural 
to an elevated state of mind. Many of the special emo- 
tions show themselves in special muscular actions. The 
gratification resulting from success, raises the head and 
gives firmness to the gait. A hearty grasp of the hand is 
currently taken as indicative of friendship. Under a gush 
of affection the mother clasps her child to her breast, feel- 
ing as though she could squeeze it to death. And so in 
sundry other cases. Even in that brightening of the eye 
with which good news is received we may trace the same 
truth ; for this appearance of greater brilliancy is due to 
an extra contraction of the muscle which raises the eyelid, 
and so allows more light to fall upon, and be reflected from, 
the wet surface of the eyeball. 

The bodily indications of painful emotions are equally 
numerous, and still more vehement. Discontent is shown 
by raised eyebrows and wrinkled forehead ; disgust by a 
curl of the lip ; offence by a pout. The impatient man 
beats a tattoo with his fingers on the table, swings his pen- 
dent leg with increasing rapidity, gives needless pokings to 
the fire, and presently paces with hasty strides about the 
room. In great grief there is wringing of the hands, ard 
even tearing of the hair. An angry child stamps, or rolls 
on its back and kicks its heels in the air : and in manhood, 



FEELINGS ACT AS MUSCULAR STIMULI. 213 

anger, first showing itself in frowns, in distended nostrils, 
in compressed lips, goes on to produce grinding of the 
teeth, clenching of the fingers, blows of the fist on the ta- 
ble, and perhaps ends in a violent attack on the offending 
person, or in throwing about and breaking the furniture. 
From that pursing of the mouth indicative of slight dis- 
pleasure, up to the frantic struggles of the maniac, we shall 
find that mental irritation tends to vent itself in bodily ac- 
tivity. 

All feelings, then — sensations or emotions, pleasurable 
or painful — have this common characteristic, that they are 
muscular stimuli. Not forgetting the few apparently ex- 
ceptional cases in which emotions exceeding a certain inten- 
sity produce prostration, we may set it down as a general 
law that, alike in man and animals, there is a direct connec- 
tion between feeling and motion ; the last growing more 
vehement as the first grows more intense. "Were it allow- 
able here to treat the matter scientifically, we might trace 
this general law down to the principle known among phys- 
iologists as that of reflex action.* Without doing this, 
however, the above numerous instances justify the general- 
ization, that mental excitement of all kinds ends in excite- 
ment of the muscles ; and that the two preserve a more or 
less constant ratio to each other. 

" But what has all this to do with The Origin and 
Function of Music f " asks the reader. Very much, as 
we shall presently see. All music is originally vocal. All 
vocal sounds are produced by the agency of certain mus- 
cles. These muscles, in common with those of the body at 
large, are excited to contraction by pleasurable and painful 
feelings. And therefore it is that feelings demonstrate 

* Those who seek information on this point may find it in an interest 
mg tract by Mr. Alexander Bain, on Animal Instinct and Int 



214 THE OEIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC. 

themselves in sounds as well as in movements. Therefore 
it is that Carlo barks as well as leaps when he is let out — 
that puss purrs as well as erects her tail — that the canary- 
chirps as well as flutters. Therefore it is that the angry 
lion roars while he lashes his sides, and the dog growls 
while he retracts his lip. Therefore it is that the maimed 
animal not only struggles, but howls. And it is from this 
cause that in human beings bodily suffering expresses itself 
not only in contortions, but in shrieks and groans — that in 
anger, and fear, and grief, the gesticulations are accompa- 
nied by shouts and screams' — that delightful sensations are 
followed by exclamations — and that we hear screams of joy 
and shouts of exultation. 

We have here, then, a principle underlying all vocal 
phenomena ; including those of vocal music, and by conse- 
quence those of music in general. The muscles that move 
the chest, larynx, and vocal chords, contracting like other 
muscles in proportion to the intensity of the feelings ; ev- 
ery different contraction of these muscles involving, as it 
does, a different adjustment of the vocal organs ; every dif- 
ferent adjustment of the vocal organs causing a change in 
the sound emitted ; — it follows that variations of voice are 
the physiological results of variations of feeling ; it follows 
that each inflection or modulation is the natural outcome 
of some passing emotion or sensation ; and it follows that 
the explanation of all kinds of vocal expression, must be 
sought in this general relation between mental and muscu- 
lar excitements. Let us, then, see whether we cannot thus 
account for the chief peculiarities in the utterance of the 
feelings : grouping these peculiarities under the heads of 
loudness, quality, or timbre, pitch, intervals, and rate of 
variation. 

Between the lungs and the organs of voice, there is 
much the same relation as between the bellows of an organ 



VOCAL SOUNDS AND STATES OF FEELING. 215 

and its pipes. And as the loudness of the sound given out 
by an organ-pipe increases with the strength of the blast 
from the bellows ; so, other things equal, the loudness of a 
vocal sound increases with the strength of the blast from 
the lungs. But the expulsion of air from the lungs is ef- 
fected by certain muscles of the chest and abdomen. The 
force with which these muscles contract, is proportionate 
to the intensity of the feeliug experienced. Hence, a priori, 
loud sounds will be the habitual results of strong feelings. 
That they are so we have daily proof. The pain which, if 
moderate, can be borne silently, causes outcries if it be- 
comes extreme. While a slight vexatio 1 makes a child 
whimper, a fit of passion calls forth a howl that disturbs 
the neighbourhood. When the voices in an adjacent room 
become unusually audible, we infer anger, or surprise, or 
joy. Loudness of applause is significant of great appro- 
bation ; and with uproarious mirth we associate the idea of 
high enjoyment. Commencing with the silence of apathy, 
we find that the utterances grow louder as the sensations 
or emotions, whether pleasurable or painful, grow stronger. 
That different qualities of voice accompany different 
mental states, and that under states of excitement the tones 
are more sonorous than usual, is another general fact ad- 
mitting of a parallel explanation. The sounds of common 
conversation have but little resonance ; those of strong 
feeling have much more. Under rising ill temper the voice 
acquires a metallic ring. In accordance with her constant 
inood, the ordinary speech of a virago has a piercing qual- 
ity quite opposite to that softness indicative of placidity. 
A ringing laugh marks an especially joyous temperament. 
Grief unburdening itself uses tones approaching in timbre 
to those of chanting : and in his most pathetic passages an 
eloquent speaker similarly falls into tones more vibratory 
than those common to him. Now any one may readily 
convince himself that resonant vocal sounds can be pro 
11 



216 THE ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC. 

duced only by a certain muscular effort additional to that 
ordinarily needed. If after uttering a word in his speak- 
ing voice, the reader, without changing the pitch or the 
loudness, will sing this word, he will perceive that before 
he can sing it, he has to alter the adjustment of the vocal 
organs ; to do which a certain force must be used ; and by 
putting his fingers on that external prominence marking 
the top of the larynx, he will have further evidence that to 
produce a sonorous tone the organs must be drawn out of 
their usual position. Thus, then, the fact that the tones of 
excited feeling are more vibratory than those of common 
conversation, is another instance of the connexion between 
mental excitement and muscular excitement. The speak- 
ing voice, the recitative voice, and the singing voice, sev- 
erally exemplify one general principle. 

That the pitch of the voice varies according to the ac- 
tion of the vocal muscles, scarcely needs saying. All know 
that the middle notes, in which they converse, are made 
without any appreciable effort ; and all know that to make 
either very high or very low notes requires a considerable 
effort. In either ascending or descending from the pitch 
of ordinary speech, we are conscious of an increasing mus- 
cular strain, which, at both extremes of the register, be- 
comes positively painful. Hence it follows from our gen- 
eral principle, that while indifference or calmness will use 
the medium tones, the tones used during excitement will 
be either above or below them ; and will rise higher and 
higher, or fall lower and lower, as the feelings grow 
stronger. This physiological deduction we also find to be 
in harmony with familiar facts. The habitual sufferer ut- 
ters his complaints in a voice raised considerably above the 
natural key ; and agonizing pain vents itself in either 
shrieks or groans — in very high or very low notes. Begin- 
ning at his talking pitch, the cry of the disappointed urchin 
grows more shrill as it grows louder. The " Oh ! " of as- 



EMOTIONS EXPEESSED BY PITCH. 217 

tonishment or delight, begins several notes below the mid 
die voice, and descends still lower. Anger expresses it 
self in high tones, or else in " curses not loud but deep.''' 1 
Deep tones, too, are always used in uttering strong re- 
proaches. Such an exclamation as " Beware ! " if made 
dramatically — that is, if made with a show of feeling — 
must be many notes lower than ordinary. Further, we 
have groans of disapprobation, groans of horror, groans 
of remorse. And extreme joy and fear are alike accompa- 
nied by shrill outcries. 

Nearly allied to the subject of pitch, is that of inter- 
vals ; and the explanation of them carries our argument a 
step further. While calm speech is comparatively monot- 
onous, emotion makes use of fifths, octaves, and even wider 
intervals. Listen to any one narrating or repeating some- 
thing in which he has no interest, and his voice will not 
wander more than two or three notes above or below his 
medium note, and that by small steps ; but when he comes 
to some exciting event he will be heard not only to use the 
higher and lower notes of his register, but to go from one to 
the other by larger leaps. Being unable in print to imitate 
these traits of feeling, we feel some difficulty in fully real- 
izing them to the reader. But we may suggest a few re- 
membrances which will perhaps call to mind a sufficiency 
of others. If two men living in the same place, and fre- 
quently seeing one another, meet, say at a public assembly, 
any phrase with which one may be heard to accost the 
other — as " Hallo, are you here ? " — will have an ordinary 
intonation. But if one of them, after long absence, has 
unexpectedly returned, the expression of surprise with 
which his friend may greet him — " Hallo ! how came you 
here ? " — will be uttered in much more strongly contrasted 
tones. The two syllables of the word " Hallo " will be, 
the one much higher and the other much lower than be- 



218 THE ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC. 

fore ; and the rest of the sentence will similarly ascend and 
descend by longer steps. 

Again, if, supposing her to be in an adjoining room, the 
mistress of the house calls " Mary," the two syllables of 
the name will be spoken in an ascending interval of a third. 
If Mary does not reply, the call will be repeated probably 
in a descending fifth ; implying the slightest shade of an- 
noyance at Mary's inattention. Should Mary still make 
no answer, the increasing annoyance will show itself by the 
use of a descending octave on the next repetition of the 
call. And supposing the silence to continue, the lady, if 
not of a very even temper, will show her irritation at 
Mary's seemingly intentional negligence by finally calling 
her in tones still more widely contrasted — the first syllable 
being higher and the last lower than before. 

Now, these and analogous facts, which the reader will 
readily accumulate, clearly conform to the law laid down. 
For to make large intervals requires more muscular action 
than to make small ones. But not only is the extent of vo. 
cal intervals thus explicable as due to the relation between 
nervous and muscular excitement, but also in some degree 
their direction, as ascending or descending. The middle 
notes being those which demand no appreciable effort of 
muscular adjustment ; and the effort becoming greater as 
we either ascend or descend ; it follows that a departure 
from the middle notes in either direction will mark increas- 
ing emotion ; while a return towards the middle notes will 
mark decreasing emotion. Hence it happens that an en- 
thusiastic person uttering such a sentence as — " It was the 
most splendid sight I ever saw ! " will ascend to the first 
syllable of the word " splendid," and thence will descend : 
the word " splendid " marking the climax of the feeling 
produced by the recollection. Hence, again, it happens 
that, under some extreme vexation produced by another's 
stupidity, an irascible man, exclaiming — " What a con- 



EMOTIONS EXPRESSED BY INTERVALS. 219 

founded fool the fellow is ! " will begin somewhat below hia 
middle voice, and descending to the word " fool," which 
he will utter in one of his deepest notes, will then ascend 
again. And it may be remarked, that the word " fool n 
will not only be deeper and louder than the rest, but will 
also have more emphasis of articulation — another mode in 
which muscular excitement is shown. 

There is some danger, however, in giving instances like 
this ; seeing that as the mode of rendering will vary accor- 
ding to the intensity of the feeling which the reader feigns 
to himself, the right cadence may not be hit upon. With 
single words there is less difficulty. Thus the " Indeed ! " 
with which a surprising fact is received, mostly begins on 
the middle note of the voice, and rises with the second syl- 
lable ; or, if disapprobation as well as astonishment is felt, 
the first syllable will be below the middle note, and the 
second lower still. Conversely, the word " Alas ! " which 
marks not the rise of a paroxysm of grief, but its decline, 
is uttered in a cadence descending towards the middle 
note ; or, if the first syllable is in the lower part of the 
register, the second ascends towards the middle note. In 
the " Heigh-ho ! " expressive of mental and muscular pros- 
tration, we may see the same truth ; and if the cadence ap- 
propriate to it be inverted the absurdity of the effect clearly 
shows how the meaning of intervals is dependent on the 
principle we have been illustrating. 

The remaining characteristic of emotional speech which 
we have to notice is that of variability of pitch. It is 
scarcely possible here to convey adequate ideas of this 
more complex manifestation. We must be content with 
simply indicating some occasions on which it may be ob- 
served. On a meeting of friends, for instance — as when 
there arrives a party of much -wish ed-for visitors — the voices 
of all will be heard to undergo changes of pitch not only 
greater but much more numerous than usual. If a speaker 



220 THE ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC. 

at a public meeting is interrupted by some squabble among 
those he is addressing, his comparatively level tones will 
be in marked contrast with the rapidly changing one of the 
disputants. And among children, whose feelings are les« 
under control than those of adults, this peculiarity is stDl 
more decided. During a scene of complaint and recrimi- 
nation between two excitable little girls, the voices may be 
heard to run up and down the gamut several times in each 
sentence. In such cases we once more recognise the same 
law : for muscular excitement is shown not only in strength 
of contraction but also in the rapidity with which different 
muscular adjustments succeed each other. 

Thus we find all the leading vocal phenomena to have a 
physiological basis. They are so many manifestations of 
the general law that feeling is a stimulus to muscular action 
— a law conformed to throughout the whole economy, not 
of man only, but of every sensitive creature — a law, there- 
fore, which lies deep in the nature of animal organization. 
The expressiveness of these various modifications of voice 
is therefore innate. Each of us, from babyhood upwards, 
has been spontaneously making them, when under the va- 
rious sensations and emotions by which they are produced. 
Having been conscious of each feeling at the same time 
that we heard ourselves make the consequent sound, we 
have acquired an established association of ideas between 
such sound and the feeling which caused it. When the 
like sound is made by another, we ascribe the like feeling 
to him ; and by a further consequence we not only ascribe 
to him that feeling, but have a certain degree of it aroused 
in ourselves : for to become conscious of the feeling which 
another is experiencing, is to have that feeling awakened 
in our own consciousness, which is the same thing as expe- 
riencing the feeling. Thus these various modifications of 
voice become not only a language through which we un- 
derstand the emotions of others, but also the means of ex- 
citing our sympathy with such emotions. 



BASIS OF A THEORY OF MUSIC. 221 

Have we not here, then, adequate data for a theory of 
music ? These vocal peculiarities which indicate excited 
feeling, are those which especially distinguish song from or' 
dinary speech. Every one of the alterations of voice which 
we have found to be a physiological result of pain or pleas- 
ure, is carried to its greatest extreme in vocal music. For 
instance, we saw that, in virtue of the general relation be- 
tween mental and muscular excitement, one characteristic 
of passionate utterance is loudness. Well, its comparative 
loudness is one of the distinctive marks of song as contrast- 
ed with the speech of daily life ; and further, the forte 
passages of an air are those intended to represent the climax 
of its emotion. We next saw that the tones in which emotion 
expresses itself, are, in conformity with this same law, of a 
more sonorous timbre than those of calm conversation. 
Here, too, song displays a still higher degree of the pecu- 
liarity ; for the singing tone is the most resonant we can 
make. Again, it was shown that, from a like cause, men- 
tal excitement vents itself in the higher and lower notes 
of the register ; using the middle notes but seldom. And 
it scarcely needs saying that vocal music is still more dis- 
tinguished by its comparative neglect of the notes in which 
we talk, and its habitual use of those above or below them 
and, moreover, that its most passionate effects are common- 
ly produced at the two extremities of its scale, but especi- 
ally the upper one. 

A yet further trait of strong feeling, similarly accounted 
for, was the employment of larger intervals than are em- 
ployed in common converse. This trait, also, every ballad 
and aria carries to an extent beyond that heard in the 
spontaneous utterances of emotion : add to which, that tho 
direction of these intervals, which, as diverging from or 
converging towards the medium tones, we found to be 
physiologically expressive of increasing or decreasing emo- 
tion, may be observed to have in music like meanings. 



222 THE ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC. 

Once more, it was pointed out that not only extreme but also 
rapid variations of pitch, are characteristic of mental ex« 
citement ; and once more we see in the quick changes of 
every melody, that song carries the characteristic as far, if 
not farther. Thus, in respect alike of loudness, timbre, 
pitch, intervals, and rate of variation, song employs and 
exaggerates the natural language of the emotions ; — it arises 
from a systematic combination of those vocal peculiarities 
which are the physiological effects of acute pleasure and 
pain. 

Besides these chief characteristics of song as distinguish- 
ed from common speech, there are sundry minor ones 
similarly explicable as due to the relation between mental 
and muscular excitement ; and before proceeding further 
these should be briefly noticed. Thus, certain passions, 
and perhaps all passions when pushed to an extreme, pro- 
duce (probably through their influence over the action of 
the heart) an effect the reverse of that which has been de- 
scribed : they cause a physical prostration, one symptom of 
which is a general relaxation of the muscles, and a conse- 
quent trembling. We have the trembling of anger, of 
fear, of hope, of joy ; and the vocal muscles being implicat- 
ed with the rest, the voice too becomes tremulous. Now, 
in singing, this tremulousness of voice is very effectively 
used by some vocalists in highly pathetic passages ; some- 
times, indeed, because of its effectiveness, too much used 
by them — as by Tamberlik, for instance. 

Again, there is a mode of musical execution known as 
the staccato, appropriate to energetic passages — to passages 
expressive of exhilaration, of resolution, of confidence. 
The action of the vocal muscles which produces this stac- 
cato style, is analogous to the muscular action which pro- 
duces the sharp, decisive, energetic movements of body in- 
dicating these states of mind ; and therefore it is that the 
staccato style has the meaning we ascribe to it. Converse 



KHTTHMIC MOTION UNDER EXCITEMENT. 223 

ly, slurred intervals are expressive of gentler and less active 
feelings ; and are so "because they imply the smaller muscu- 
lar vivacity due to a lower mental energy. The difference 
of effect resulting from difference of time in music, is also 
attributable to the same law. Already it has been pointed 
out that the more frequent changes of pitch which ordina- 
rily result from passion, are imitated and developed in song ; 
and here we have to add, that the various rates of such 
changes, appropriate to the different styles of music, are 
further traits having the same derivation. The slowest 
movements, largo and adagio, are used where such depress- 
ing emotions as grief, or such unexciting emotions as rev- 
erence, are to be portrayed ; while the more rapid move 
ments, andante, allegro, presto, represent successively in- 
creasing degrees of mental vivacity; and do this because 
they imply that muscular activity which flows from this 
mental vivacity. Even the rhythm, which forms a remain- 
ing distinction between song and speech, may not improb- 
ably have a kindred cause. Why the actions excited by 
strong feeling should tend to become rhythmical, is not 
very obvious ; but that they do so there are divers eviden- 
ces. There is the swaying of the body to and fro under 
pain or grief, of the leg under impatience or agitation. 
Dancing, too, is a rhythmical action natural to elevated emo- 
tion. That under excitement speech acquires a certain 
rhythm, we may occasionally perceive in the highest efforts 
of an orator. In poetxy, which is a form of speech used 
for the better expression of emotional ideas, we have this 
rhythmical tendency developed. And when we bear in 
mind that dancing, poetry, and music are connate — are ori- 
ginally constituent parts of the same thing, it becomes 
clear that the measured movement common to them all im- 
plies a rhythmical action of the whole system, the vocal ap- 
paratus included ; and that so the rhythm of music is a more 
subtle and complex result of this relation between mental 
and muscular excitement. 



224 THE ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC. 

But it is time to end this analysis, which, possibly we 
have already carried too far. It is not to be supposed that 
the more special peculiarities of musical expression are to 
be definitely explained. Though probably they may all in 
some way conform to the principle that has been worked 
cut, it is obviously impracticable to trace that principle in its 
more ramified applications. Nor is it needful to our argu- 
ment that it should be so traced. The foregoing facts 
sufficiently prove that what we regard as the distinctive 
traits of song, are simply the traits of emotional speech in- 
tensified and systematized. In respect of its general char- 
acteristics, we think it has been made clear that vocal mu- 
sic, and by consequence all music, is an idealization of the 
natural language of passion. 

As far as it goes, the scanty evidence furnished by his- 
tory confirms this conclusion. Note first the fact (not 
properly an historical one, but fitly grouped with such) 
that the dance-chants of savage tribes are very monoton- 
ous; and in virtue of their monotony are much more nearly 
allied to ordinary speech than are the songs of civilized 
races. Joining with this the fact that there are still extant 
among boatmen and others in the East, ancient chants of a 
like monotonous character, we may infer that vocal music 
originally diverged from emotional speech in a gradual, 
unobtrusive manner ; and this is the inference to which 
our argument points. Further evidence to the same 
effect is supplied by Greek history. The early poems of 
the Greeks — which, be it remembered, were sacred le» 
gends embodied in that rhythmical, metaphorical language 
which strong feeling excites — were not recited, but chant- 
ed : the tones and the cadences were made musical by the 
same influences which made the speech poetical. 

By those who have investigated the matter, this chant* 
mg is believed to have been not what we call singing, bul 



DEVELOPMENT OF EMOTIONAL SPEECH. 225 

nearly allied to our recitative ; (far simpler indeed, if we 
may judge from the fact that the early Greek lyre, which 
had but four strings, was played in unison with the voice, 
which was therefore confined to four notes ; ) and as such, 
much less remote from common speech than our own sing- 
ing is. For recitative, or musical recitation, is in all res- 
pects intermediate between speech and song. Its average 
effects are not so loud as those of song. Its tones are less 
sonorous in timbre than those of song. Commonly it di- 
verges to a smaller extent from the middle notes — uses 
notes neither so high nor so low in pitch. The intervals 
habitual to it are neither so wide nor so varied. Its rate 
of variation is not so rapid. And at the same time that its 
primary rhythm is less decided, it has none of that second- 
ary rhythm produced by recurrence of the same or parallel 
musical phrases, which is one of the marked character- 
istics of song. Thus, then, we may not only infer, from 
the evidence furnished by existing barbarous tribes, thai 
the vocal music of pre-historic times was emotional speech 
very slightly exalted ; but we see that the earliest vocal 
music of which we have any account, differed much less 
from emotional speech than does the vocal music of our 
days. 

That recitative — beyond which, by the way, the Chinese 
and Hindoos seem never to have advanced — grew naturally 
out of the modulations and cadences of strong feeling, we 
have indeed still current evidence. There are even now 
to be met with occasions on which strong feeling vents 
itself in this form. Whoever has been present when a 
meeting of Quakers was addressed by one of their preach- 
ers (whose practice it is to speak only under the influence 
of religious emotion), must have been struck by the quite 
unusual tones, like those of a subdued chant, in which the 
address was made. It is clear, too, that the intoning used 
in some churches, is representative of this same mental 



226 THE OEIGEST AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC. 

state; and has been adopted on account of the instinctively 
felt congruity between it and the contrition, supplication 
or reverence verbally expressed. 

And if, as we have good reason to believe, recitative 
arose by degrees out of emotional speech, it becomes mani- 
fest that by a continuance o.f the same process song has 
arisen out of recitative. Just as, from the orations and 
legends of savages, expressed in the metaphorical, allegori- 
cal style natural to them, there sprung epic poetry, out of 
which lyric poetry was afterwards developed ; so, from the 
exalted tones and cadences in which such orations and le- 
gends were delivered, came the chant or recitative music, 
from whence lyrical music has since grown up. And there 
has not only thus been a simultaneous and parallel genesis, 
but there is also a parallelism of results. For lyrical poetry 
differs from epic poetry, just as lyrical music differs from 
recitative : each still further intensifies the natural language 
of the emotions. Lyrical poetry is more metaphorical, 
more hyperbolic, more elliptical, and adds the rhythm of 
lines to the rhythm of feet ; just as lyrical music is louder, 
more sonorous, more extreme in its intervals, and adds the 
rhythm of phrases to the rhythm of bars. And the known 
fact that out of epic poetry the stronger passions developed 
lyrical poetry as their appropriate vehicle, strengthens the 
inference that they similarly developed lyrical music out of 
recitative. 

Nor indeed are we without evidences of the transition. 
It needs but to listen to an opera to hear the leading gra- 
dations. Between the comparatively level recitative of 
ordiuary dialogue, the more varied recitative with wider 
intervals and higher tones used in exciting scenes, the 
still more musical recitative which preludes an air, and 
the air itself, the successive steps are but small; and 
the fact that among airs themselves gradations of like 
nature may be traced, further confirms the conclusion 



SENSIBILITY OF MUSICAL COMPOSERS. 227 

that the highest form of vocal music was arrived at by 
degrees. 

Moreover, we have some clue to the influences which 
have induced this development ; and may roughly conceive 
the process of it. As the tones, intervals, and cadences of 
strong emotion were the elements out of which song was 
elaborated ; so, we may expect to find that still stronger 
emotion produced the elaboration : and we have evidence 
implying this. Instances in abundance may be cited, show- 
ing that musical composers are men of extremely acute 
sensibilities. The Life of Mozart depicts him as one of 
intensely active affections and highly impressionable tem- 
perament. Various anecdotes represent Beethoven as 
very susceptible and very passionate. Mendelssohn is de- 
scribed by those who knew him to have been full of fine 
feeling. And the almost incredible sensitiveness of Chopin 
has been illustrated in the memoirs of George Sand. An 
unusually emotional nature being thus the general charac- 
teristic of musical composers, we have in it just the agency 
required for the development of recitative and song. In- 
tenser feeling producing intenser manifestations, any cause 
of excitement will call forth from such a nature, tones and 
changes of voice more marked than those called forth fronr 
an ordinary nature —will generate just those exaggerations 
which we have found to distinguish the lower vocal music 
from emotional speech, and the higher vocal music from 
the lower. Thus it becomes credible that the four-toned 
recitative of the early Greek poets (like all poets, nearly 
allied to composers in the comparative intensity of their 
feelings), was really nothing more than the slightly ex- 
aggerated emotional speech natural to them, which grew 
by frequent use into an organized form. And it is readily 
conceivable that the accumulated agency of subsequent 
poet-musicians, inheriting and adding to the products 
of those who went before them, sufficed, in the course of 



228 THE ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC. 

the ten centuries which we know it took, to develope this 
four-toned recitative into a vocal music having a range of 
two octaves. 

Not only may we so understand how more sonorous 
tones, greater extremes of pitch, and wider intervals, were 
gradually introduced ; but also how there arose a greater 
variety and complexity of musical expression. For this 
same passionate, enthusiastic temperament, which naturally 
leads the musical composer to express the feelings possessed 
by others as well as himself, in extremer intervals and more 
marked cadences than they would use, also leads him to 
give musical utterance to feelings which they either do not 
experience, or experience in but slight degrees. In virtue 
of this general susceptibility which distinguishes him, he 
regards with emotion, events, scenes, conduct, character, 
which produce upon most men no appreciable effect. The 
emotions so generated, compounded as they are of the sim- 
pler emotions, are not expressible by intervals and cadences 
natural to these, but by combinations of such intervals and 
cadences : whence arise more involved musical phrases, 
conveying more complex, subtle, and unusual feelings. 
And thus we may in some measure understand how it hap- 
pens that music not only so strongly excites our more 
familiar feelings, but also produces feelings we never had 
before — arouses dormant sentiments of which we had not 
conceived the possibility and do not know the meaning ; 
or, as Richter says — tells us of things we have not seen and 
shall not see. 

Indirect evidences of several kinds remain to be briefly 
pointed out. One of them is the difficulty, not to say im- 
possibility, of otherwise accounting for the expressiveness 
of music. Whence comes it that special combinations of 
notes should have special effects upon our emotions ? — that 
one should give us a feeling of exhilaration, another of 



PHYSIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF MUSICAL EFFECTS. 229 

melancholy, another of affection, another of reverence ? 
Is it that these special combinations have intrinsic mean- 
ings apart from the human constitution ? — that a certain 
number of aerial waves per second, followed by a certain 
other number, in the nature of things signify grief, while 
in the reverse order they signify joy ; and similarly with 
all other intervals, phrases, and cadences ? Few will be so 
irrational as to think this. Is it, then, that the meanings 
of these special combinations are conventional only ? — that 
we learn their implications, as we do those of words, by 
observing how others understand them ? This is an hy- 
pothesis not only devoid of evidence, but directly opposed 
to the experience of every one. How, then, are musical 
effects to be explained ? If the theory above set forth be 
accepted, the difficulty disappears. If music, taking for its 
raw material the various modifications of voice which are 
the physiological results of excited feeling, intensifies, com- 
bines, and complicates them — if it exaggerates the loud- 
ness, the resonance, the pitch, the intervals, and the varia- 
bility, which, in virtue of an organic law, are the charac- 
teristics of passionate speech — if, by carrying out these fur- 
ther, more consistently, more unitedly, and more sus- 
tainedly, it produces an idealized language of emotion ; 
then its power over us becomes comprehensible. But in 
the absence of this theory, the expressiveness of music ap- 
pears to be inexplicable. 

Again, the preference we feel for certain qualities of 
sound presents a like difficulty, admitting only of a like 
solution. It is generally agreed that the tones of the hu- 
man voice are more pleasing than any others. Grant that 
music takes its rise from the modulations of the human 
voice under emotion, and it becomes a natural consequence 
that the tones of that voice should appeal to our feelings 
more than any others ; and so should be considered more 
beautiful than any others. But deny that music has this 



230 THE ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC. 

origin, and the only alternative is the untenable position 
that the vibrations proceeding from a vocalist's throat are, 
objectively considered, of a higher order than those from a 
horn or a violin. Similarly with harsh and soft sounds. 
If the conclusiveness of the foregoing reasonings be not 
admitted, it must be supposed that the vibrations causing 
the last are intrinsically better than those causing the first ; 
and that, in virtue of some pre-established harmony, the 
higher feelings and natures produce the one, and the lower 
the other. But if the foregoing reasonings be valid, it 
follows, as a matter of course, that we shall like the 
sounds that habitually accompany agreeable feelings, and 
dislike those that habitually accompany disagreeable feeb 
ings. 

Once more, the question — How is the expressiveness of 
music to be otherwise accounted for ? may be supplement- 
ed by the question — How is the genesis of music to be 
otherwise accounted for ? That music is a product of civ- 
ilization is manifest ; for though savages have their dance- 
chants, these are of a kind scarcely to be dignified by 
the title musical : at most, they supply but the vaguest 
rudiment of music, properly so called. And if music 
has been by slow steps developed in the course of civili- 
zation, it must have been developed out of something. 
If, then, its origin is not that above alleged, what is its 
origin ? 

Thus we find that the negative evidence confirms the 
positive, and that, taken together, they furnish strong 
proof. We have seen that there is a physiological relation, 
common to man and all animals, between feeling and mus- 
cular action ; that as vocal sounds are produced by muscu- 
lar action, there is a consequent physiological relation be- 
tween feeling and vocal sounds ; that all the modifications 
of voice expressive of feeling are the direct results of this 
physiological relation ; that music, adopting all these modi 



ITS INDIRECT BENEFITS AND PLEASURES. 231 

fications, intensifies them more and more as it ascends to 
its higher and higher forms, and becomes music simply in 
virtue of thus intensifying them ; that, from the ancient 
epic poet chanting his verses, down to the modern musical 
composer, men of unusually strong feelings prone to express 
tliem in extreme forms, have been naturally the agents of 
these successive intensifications ; and that so there has 
little by little arisen a wide divergence between this ideal- 
ized language of emotion and its natural language : to 
which direct evidence we have just added the indirect 
— that on no other tenable hypothesis can either the 
expressiveness or the genesis of music be explained. 

And now, what is the function of music ? Has music 
any effect beyond the immediate pleasure it produces ? 
Analogy suggests that it has. The enjoyments of a good 
dinner do not end with themselves, but minister to bodily 
well-being. Though people do not marry with a view to 
maintain the race, yet the passions which impel them to 
marry secure its maintenance. Parental affection is a feel- 
ing which, while it conduces to parental happiness, ensures 
the nurture of offspring. Men love to accumulate property, 
often without thought of the benefits it produces ; but in 
pursuing the pleasure of acquisition they indirectly open the 
way to other pleasures. The wish for public approval im- 
pels all of us to do many things which we should otherwise 
not do, — to undertake great labours, face great dangers, 
and habitually rule ourselves in a way that smooths social 
intercourse : that is, in gratifying our love of approbation 
we subserve divers ulterior purposes. And, generally, our 
nature is such that in fulfilling each desire, we in some way 
facilitate the fulfilment of the rest. But the love of music 
seems to exist for its own sake. The delights of melody 
and harmony do not obviously minister to the welfare 
either of the individual or of society. May we not suspect. 



232 THE ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC. 

however, that this exception is apparent only ? Is it not 
a rational inquiry — What are the indirect "benefits which 
accrue from music, in addition to the direct pleasure it 
gives ? 

But that it would take us too far out of our track, we 
should prelude this inquiry by illustrating at some length a 
certain general law of progress ; — the law that alike in oc- 
cupations, sciences, arts, the divisions that had a common 
root, but by continual divergence have become distinct, 
and are now being separately developed, are not truly in- 
dependent, but severally act and react on each other to 
their mutual advancement. Merely hinting thus much, 
however, by way of showing that there are many analogies 
to justify us, we go on to express the opinion that there 
exists a relationship of this kind between music and 
speech. 

All speech is compounded of two elements, the words 
and the tones in which they are uttered — the signs of ideas 
and the signs of feelings. While certain articulations ex- 
press the thought, certain vocal sounds express the more 
or less of pain or pleasure which the thought gives. Using 
the word cadence in an unusually extended sense, as com- 
prehending all modifications of voice, we may say that 
cadence is the commentary of the emotions upon the ^^po- 
sitions of the intellect. This duality of spoken language, 
though not formally recognised, is recognised in practice 
by every one ; and every one knows that very often more 
weight attaches to the tones than to the words. Daily ex- 
perience supplies cases in which the same sentence of dis- 
approval will be understood as meaning little or meaning 
much, according to the inflections of voice which accom- 
pany it ; and daily experience supplies still more striking 
cases in which words and tones are in direct contradiction 
—the first expressing consent, while the last express reluc- 
tance ; and the last being believed rather than the first. 



IT DEVELOPES THE LANGUAGE OF THE EMOTIONS. 233 

These two distinct but interwoven elements of speech 
have been undergoing a simultaneous development. We 
know that in the course of civilization words have been 
multiplied, new parts of speech have been introduced, sen- 
tences have grown more varied and complex ; and we maj 
fah-ly infer that during the same time new modifications of 
voice have come into use, fresh intervals have been adopt- 
ed, and cadences have become more elaborate. For while, 
on the one hand, it is absurd to suppose that, along with 
the undeveloped verbal forms of barbarism, there existed 
a developed system of vocal inflections ; it is, on the other 
hand, necessary to suppose that, along with the higher and 
more numerous verbal forms needed to convey the multi- 
plied and complicated ideas of civilized life, there have 
grown up those more involved changes of voice which ex- 
press the feelings proper to such ideas. If intellectual lan- 
guage is a growth, so also, without doubt, is emotional lan- 
guage a growth. 

Now, the hypothesis which we have hinted above, is, 
that beyond the direct pleasure which it gives, music has 
the indirect effect of developing this language of the emo- 
tions. Having its root, as we have endeavoured to show, 
in those tones, intervals, and cadences of speech which ex- 
press feeling — arising by the combination and intensifying 
of these, and coming finally to have an embodiment of its 
own ; music has all along been reacting upon speech, and 
increasing its power of rendering emotion. The use in re- 
citative and song of inflections more expressive than ordi- 
nary ones, must from the beginning have tended to devel- 
ope the ordinary ones. Familiarity with the more varied 
combinations of tones that occur in vocal music, can 
scarcely have failed to give greater variety of combination 
to the tones in which we utter our impressions and desires. 
The complex musical phrases by which composers have 
conveyed complex emotions, may rationally be supposed to 



234: THE OKIGIN AND Fl/NCTION OF MUSIC. 

have influenced us in making those involved cadences of 
conversation by which we convey our subtler thoughts and 
feelings. 

That the cultivation of music has no effect on the mind, 
few will be absurd enough to contend. And if it has an 
effect, what more natural effect is there than this of devel- 
oping our perception of the meanings of inflections, quali- 
ties, and modulations of voice ; and giving us a corres- 
pondingly increased power of using them ? Just as mathe- 
matics, taking its start from the phenomena of physics 
and astronomy, and presently coming to be a separate sci- 
ence, has since reacted on physics and astronomy to their 
immense advancement — -just as chemistry, first arising out 
of the processes of metallurgy and the industrial arts, and 
gradually growing into an independent study, has now be- 
come an aid to all kinds of production — just as physiology, 
originating out of medicine and once subordinate to it, but 
latterly pursued for its own sake, is in our day coming to 
be the science on which the progress of medicine depends ; 
■ — so, music, having its root in emotional language, and 
gradually evolved from it, has ever been reacting upon and 
further advancing it. Whoever will examine the facts, will 
find this hypothesis to be in harmony with the method of 
civilization everywhere displayed. 

It will scarcely be expected that much direct evidence 
in support of this conclusion can be given. The facts are 
of a kind which it is difficult to measure, and of which we 
have no records. Some suggestive traits, however, may 
be noted. May we not say, for instance, that the Italians, 
among whom modern music was earliest cultivated, and 
who have more especially practised and excelled in melody 
(the division of music with which our argument is chiefly 
concerned) — may we not say that these Italians speak in 
more varied and expressive inflections and cadences than 
any other nation ? On the other hand, may we not say 



IMPORTANCE OF EMOTIONAL LANGUAGE. 235 

that, confined almost exclusively as they have hitherto 
been to their national airs, which have a marked family 
likeness, and therefore accustomed to but a limited range 
of musical expression, the Scotch are unusually monotonous 
in the intervals and modulations of their speech ? And 
again, do we not find among different classes of the same 
nation, differences that have like implications ? The gen- 
tleman and the clown stand in very decided contrast with 
respect to variety of intonation. Listen to the conversa- 
tion of a servant-girl, and then to that of a refined, accom- 
plished lady, and the more delicate and complex changes 
of voice used by the latter will be conspicuous. Now, 
without going so far as to say that out of all the differences 
of culture to which the upper and lower classes are sub- 
jected, difference of musical culture is that to which alone 
this difference of speech is ascribable ; yet we may fairly 
say that there seems a much more obvious connexion of 
cause and effect between these than between any others. 
Thus, while the inductive evidence to which we can appeal 
is but scanty nnd vague, yet what there is favours our posi- 
tion. 

Probably most will think that the function here assigned 
to music is one of very little moment. But further reflec- 
tion may lead them to a contrary conviction. In its bear- 
ings upon human happiness, we believe that this emotional 
language which musical culture developes and refines, is 
only second in importance to the language of the intellect ; 
perhaps not even second to it. For these modifications 
of voice produced by feelings, are the means of exciting 
like feelings in others. Joined with gestures and expres- 
sions of face, they give life to the otherwise dead words in 
which the intellect utters its ideas ; and so enable the 
hearer not only to understand the state of mind they ac- 
company, but to partake of that state. In short, they are 



236 THE ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC. 

the chief media of sympathy. And if we consider how 
much both our general welfare and our immediate pleas- 
ures depend upon sympathy, we shall recognise the import- 
ance of whatever makes this sympathy greater. If we 
bear in mind that by tneir fellow-feeling men are led to be- 
have justly, kindly and considerately to each other — that 
the difference between the cruelty of the barbarous and 
the humanity of the civilized, results from the increase of 
fellow-feeling ; if we bear in mind that this faculty which 
makes us sharers in the joys and sorrows of others, is the 
basis of all the higher affections — that in friendship, love, 
and all domestic pleasures, it is an essential element ; if we 
bear in mind how much our direct gratifications are inten- 
sified by sympathy, — how, at the theatre, the concert, the 
picture gallery, we lose half our enjoyment if we have no 
one to enjoy with us ; if, in short, we bear in mind that for 
all happiness beyond what the unfriended recluse can have, 
we are indebted to this same sympathy ; — we shall see that 
the agencies which communicate it can scarcely be over- 
rated in value. 

The tendency of civilization is more and more to re- 
press the antagonistic elements of our characters and to 
develope the social ones — to curb our purely selfish desires 
and exercise our unselfish ones — to replace private gratifi- 
cations by gratifications resulting from, or involving, the 
happiness of others. And while, by this adaptation to the 
social state, the sympathetic side of our nature is being un- 
folded, there is simultaneously growing up a language of 
sympathetic intercourse — a language through which we 
communicate to others the happiness we feel, and are made 
sharers in their happiness. 

This double process, of which the effects are already 
sufficiently appreciable, must go on to an extent of which 
we can as yet have no adequate conception. The habitual 
concealment of our feelings diminishing, as it must, in pro- 



FUTURE GROWTH OF EMOTIONAL LANGUAGE. 237 

portion as our feelings become such as do not demand con- 
cealment, we may conclude that the exhibition of them will 
become much more vivid than we now dare allow it to be; 
and this implies a more expressive emotional language. 
At the same time, feelings of a higher and more complex 
kind, as yet experienced only by the cultivated few, will 
become general ; and there will be a corresponding devel- 
opment of the emotional language into more involved 
forms. Just as there has silently grown up a language of 
ideas, which, rude as it at first was, now enables us to con- 
vey with precision the most subtle and complicated 
thoughts ; so, there is still silently growing up a language 
of feelings, which notwithstanding its present imperfection, 
we may expect will ultimately enable men vividly and com- 
pletely to impress on each other all the emotions which 
they experience from moment to moment. 

Thus if, as we have endeavoured to show, it is the func- 
tion of music to facilitate the development of this emo- 
tional language, we may regard music as an aid to the 
achievement of that higher happiness which it indistinctly 
shadows forth. Those vague feelings of unexperienced fe- 
licity which music arouses — those indefinite impressions of 
an unknown ideal life which it calls up, may be considered 
as a prophecy, to the fulfilment of which music is itself 
partly instrumental. The strange capacity which we have 
for being so affected by melody and harmony, may be taken 
to imply both that it is within the possibilities of our na- 
ture to realize those intenser delights they dimly suggest, 
and that they are in some way concerned in the realization 
of them. On this supposition the power and the meaning 
of music become comprehensible ; but otherwise they are 
a mystery. 

"We will only add, that if the probability of these corol- 
laries be admitted, then music must take rank as the high- 
est of the fine arts — as the one which, more than any other, 



238 THE ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC. 

ministers to Human welfare. And thus, even leaving out 
of view the immediate gratifications it is hourly giving, 
we cannot too much applaud that progress of musical cul- 
ture which is becoming one of the characteristics of oui 
age. 



VI. 

THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 



INQUIRING into the pedigree of an idea is not a bad 
means of roughly estimating its value. To have come of 
respectable ancestry, is primd facie evidence of worth in a 
belief as in a person ; while to be descended from a discred- 
itable stock is, in the one case as in the other, an unfavora- 
ble index. The analogy is not a mere fancy. Beliefs, to- 
gether with those who hold them, are modified little by lit- 
tle in successive generations ; and as the modifications 
which successive generations of the holders undergo, do 
not destroy the original type, but only disguise and refine 
it, so the accompanying alterations of belief, however much 
they purify, leave behind the essence of the original belief. 
Considered genealogically, the received theory respecting 
the creation of the Solar System is unmistakeably of low 
origin. You may clearly trace it back to primitive mythol- 
ogies. Its remotest ancestor is the doctrine that the celes- 
tial bodies are personages who originally lived on the Earth 
— a doctrine still held by some of the negroes Livingstone 
visited. Science having divested the sun and planets of 
their divine personalities, this old idea was succeeded by 
the idea which even Kepler entertained, that the planets 
are guided in their courses by presiding spirits : no longer 
12 



240 THE NEBTJLAU HYPOTHESIS. 

themselves gods, they are still severally kept in their orbits hy 
gods. And when gravitation came to dispense with these ce- 
lestial steersmen, there was begotten a belief, less gross than 
its parent, but partaking of the same essential nature, that 
the planets were originally launched into their orbits from 
the Creator's hand. Evidently, though much refined, the an- 
thropomorphism of the current hypothesis is inherited from 
the aboriginal anthropomorphism, which described gods as 
a stronger order of men. 

There is an antagonist hypothesis which does not pro- 
pose to honour the Unknown Power manifested in the Uni- 
verse, by such titles as " The Master-Builder," or " The 
Great Artificer ; " but which regards this Unknown Power 
as probably working after a method quite different from 
that of human mechanics. And the genealogy of this hy- 
pothesis is as high as that of the other is low. It is begot- 
ten by that ever-enlarging and ever-strengthening belief in 
the presence of Law, which accumulated experiences have 
gradually produced in the human mind. From generation 
to generation Science has been proving uniformities of re- 
lation among phenomena which were before thought either 
fortuitous or supernatural in their origin — has been showing 
an established order and a constant causation where igno- 
rance had assumed irregularity and arbitrariness. Each fur- 
ther discovery of Law has increased the presumption that 
Law is everywhere conformed to. And hence, among 
other beliefs, has arisen the belief that the Solar System 
originated, not by manufacture but by evolution. Besides 
its abstract parentage in those grand general conceptions 
which positive Science has generated, this hypothesis has a 
concrete parentage of the highest character. Based as it 
is on the law of universal gravitation, it may claim for its 
remote progenitor the great thinker who established that 
law. The man who gave it its general shape, by promulga- 
ting the doctrine that stars result from the aggregation of 



ITS HIGH DERIVATION. 241 

diffused matter, was the most diligent, careful, and original 
astronomical observer of modern times. And the world 
has not seen a more learned mathematician than the man 
who, setting out with this conception of diffused matter 
concentrating towards its centre of gravity, pointed out 
the way in which there would arise, in the course of 
its concentration, a balanced group of sun, planets, and 
satellites, like that of which the Earth is a member. 

Thus, even were there but little direct evidence assign- 
able for the Nebular Hypothesis, the probability of its 
truth would still be strong. Its own high derivation and 
the low derivation of the antagonist hypothesis, would to- 
gether form a weighty reason for accepting it — at any rate, 
provisionally. But the direct evidence assignable for the 
Nebular Hypothesis is by no means little'. It is far greater 
in quantity, and more varied in kind, than is commonly 
supposed. Much has been said here and there on this or that 
class of evidences ; but nowhere, as far as we know, have 
all the evidences, even of one class, been fully stated ; and 
still less has there been an adequate statement of the sev- 
eral groups of evidences in their ensemble. We propose 
here to do something towards supplying the deficiency: 
believing that, joined with the a priori reasons given above, 
the array of a posteriori reasons will leave little doubt in 
the mind of any candid inquirer. 

And first, let us address ourselves to those recent dis- 
coveries in stellar astronomy, which have been supposed to 
conflict with this celebrated speculation. 

When Sir William Herschel, directing his great reflec- 
tor to various nebulous spots, found them resolvable into 
clusters of stars, he inferred, and for a time maintained, 
that all nebulous spots are clusters of stars exceedingly re- 
mote from us. But after years of conscientious investiga- 
tion, he concluded that " there were nebulosities which ary 



242 THE NEBTJLAU HYPOTHESIS. 

not of a starry nature ; " and on this conclusion was based 
his hypothesis of a diffused luminous fluid, which by its 
eventual aggregation, produced stars. A telescopic pow- 
er much exceeding that used by Herschel, has enabled 
Lord Rosse to resolve some of the nebulae previously un- 
resolved ; and, returning to the conclusion which Herschel 
first formed on similar grounds but afterwards rejected, 
many astronomers have assumed that, under sufficiently 
high powers, every nebula would be deconrposed into stars 
— that the resolvability is solely a question of distance. The 
hypothesis now commonly entertained is, that all nebulae 
are galaxies more or less like in nature to that immediately 
surrounding us ; but that they are so inconceivably re- 
mote, as to look, through an ordinary telescope, like small 
faint spots. And not a few have drawn the corollary, that 
by the discoveries of Lord Rosse the Nebular Hypothesis 
has been disproved. 

Now, even supposing that these inferences respecting 
the distances and natures of the nebulae are valid, they leave 
the Nebular Hypothesis substantially as it was. Admit- 
ting that each of those faint spots is a sidereal system, so 
far removed that its countless stars give less light than 
one small star of our own sidereal system ; the admission 
is in no way inconsistent with the belief, that stars and their 
attendant planets have been formed by the aggregation of 
nebulous matter. Though, doubtless, if the existence of 
nebulous matter now in course of concentration be dis- 
proved, one of the evidences of the Nebular Hypothesis is 
destroyed ; yet the remaining evidences remain just as they 
were. It is a perfectly tenable position, that though nebu- 
lar condensation is now nowhere to be seen in progress, yet 
it was once going on universally. And, indeed, it might 
be argued that the still-continued existence of diffused 
nebulous matter is scarcely to be expected ; seeing that 
Ihe causes which have resulted in the aggregation of one 



THE CONDENSED NEBULOUS MATTER. 243 

mass, must have Ibeen acting on all masses, and that hence 
the existence of masses not aggregated would be a fact 
calling for explanation. Thus, granting the immediate 
conclusions suggested by these recent disclosures of the 
six-feet reflector, the corollary which many have drawn is 
inadmissible. 

But we do not grant these conclusions. Receiving them 
though we have, for years past, as established truths, a 
critical examination of the facts has convinced us that they 
are quite unwarrantable. They involve so many manifest 
incongruities, that we have been astonished to find men of 
science entertaining them even as probable hypotheses. 
Let us consider these incongruities. 

In the first place, mark what is inferable from the dis- 
tribution of nebula?. 

" The spaces which precede or which follow simple nebulas," 
Bays Arago, " and, & fortiori, groups of nebulas, contain generally 
few stars. Herschel found this rule to be invariable. Thus, 
every time tbat, during a sbort interval, no star approached, in 
virtue of the diurnal motion, to place itself in the field of his mo- 
tionless telescope, he was accustomed to say to the secretary who 
assisted him, ' Prepare to write ; nebulas are about to arrive.' " 

How does this fact consist with the hypothesis that ne- 
bulae are remote galaxies ? If there were but one nebula, 
it would be a curious coincidence were this one nebula so 
placed in the distant regions of space, as to agree in direc- 
tion with a starless spot in our own sidereal system. If 
there were but two nebulas, and both were so placed, the 
coincidence would be excessively strange. What, then, 
shall we say on finding that there are thousands of nebulae 
bo placed ? Shall we believe that in thousands of cases 
these far-removed galaxies happen to agree in their visible 
positions with the thin places in our own galaxy ? Such a 
belief is next to impossible. Still more manifest does the 
impossibility of it become when we consider the general 



24:4 THE NEBULAS HYPOTHESIS. 

distribution of nebulas. Besides again showing itseJf in 
the fact that " the poorest regions in stars are near the rich- 
est in nebulae," the law above specified applies to the heav- 
ens as a whole. In that zone of celestial space where stara 
are excessively abundant, nebulas are rare ; while in the two 
opposite celestial spaces that are furthest removed from this 
zone, nebulas are abundant. Scarcely any nebulas he near 
the galactic circle (or plane of the Milky Way) ; and the 
great mass of them lie round the galactic poles. Can this 
also be mere coincidence ? When to the fact that the gen- 
eral mass of nebulas are antithetical in position to the gen- 
eral mass of stars, we add the fact that local regions of ne- 
bulas are regions where stars are scarce, and the further 
fact that single nebulas are habitually found in comparative- 
ly starless spots ; does not the proof of a physical connex- 
ion become overwhelming ? Should it not require an in- 
finity of evidence to show that nebulas are not parts of our 
sidereal system ? Let us see whether any such infinity of 
evidence is assignable. Let us see whether there is even a 
single alleged proof which will bear examination. 

"As seen through colossal telescopes," says Humboldt, "the 
contemplation of these nebulous masses leads us into regions from 
whence a ray of light, according to an assumption not wholly im- 
probable, requires millions of years to reach our earth — to dis- 
tances for whose measurement the dimensions (the distance of 
Sirius, or the calculated distances of the binary stars in Cygnus 
aod the Centaur) of our nearest stratum of fixed stars scarcely 
suffice." 

Now, in this somewhat confused sentence there is ex- 
pressed a more or less decided belief, that the distances of 
the nebulas from our galaxy of stars as much transcend the 
distances of our stars from each other, as these interstellar 
distances transcend the dimensions of our planetary system. 
Just as the diameter of the Earth's orbit, is an inapprecia- 



THE CONDENSED NEBULOUS MATTER. 245 

ble point when compared with the distance of our Sun from 
Sirius ; so is the distance of our Sun from Sirius, an inap- 
preciable point when compared with the distance of our 
galaxy from those far removed galaxies constituting nebulae 
Observe the consequences of this assumption. 

If one of these supposed galaxies is so remote that its 
distance dwarfs our interstellar spaces into points, and there- 
fore makes the dimensions of our whole sidereal system re- 
latively insignificant ; does it not inevitably follow that the 
telescopic power required to resolve this remote galaxy into 
stars, must be incomparably greater than the telescopic 
power required to resolve the whole of our own galaxy 
into stars ? Is it not certain that an instrument which can 
just exhibit with clearness the most distant stars of our own 
cluster, must be utterly unable to separate one of these re- 
mote clusters into stars ? What, then, are we to think 
when we find that the same instrument which decomposes 
hosts of nebulae into stars, fails to resolve completely our 
own Milky Way ? Take a homely comparison. Suppose 
a man surrounded by a swarm of bees, extending, as they 
sometimes do, so high in the air as to be individually almost 
invisible, were to declare that a certain spot on the horizon 
was a swai-m of bees; and that he knew it because he could 
see the bees as separate specks. Astounding as the asser- 
tion would be, it would not exceed in incredibility this which 
we are criticising. Reduce the dimensions to figures, and 
the absurdity becomes still more palpable. In round num- 
bers, the distance of Sirius from the Earth is a million timea 
the distance of the Earth from the Sun ; and, according to 
the hypothesis, the distance of a nebula is something like a 
million times the distance of Sirius. 

Now, our own " starry island, or nebula," as Humboldt 
calls it, " forms a lens-shaped, flattened, and everywhere 
detached stratum, whose major axis is estimated at seven 
or eight hundred, and its minor axis at a hundred and fifty 



246 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

times the distance of Sirius from the Earth."* And since 
it is concluded that our Solar System is near the centre of 
this aggregation, it follows that our distance from the re- 
motest parts of it is about four hundred distances of Sirius. 
But the stars forming these remotest parts are not individ- 
ually visible, even through telescopes of the highest power. 
How, then, can such telescopes make individually visible 
the stars of a nebula which is a million times the distance 
of Sirius ? The implication is, that a star rendered invisi- 
ble by distance becomes visible if taken two thousand five 
hundred times further off! Shall we accept this implica- 
tion ? or shall we not rather conclude that the nebulas are 
not remote galaxies ? Shall we not infer that, be their na- 
ture what it may, they must be at least as near to us as the 
extremities of our own sidereal system ? 

Throughout the above argument, it is tacitly assumed 
that differences of apparent magnitude among the stars, 
result mainly from differences of distance. On this as- 
sumption the current doctrines respecting the nebulas are 
founded ; and this assumption is, for the nonce, admitted 
in each of the foregoing criticisms. From the time, how- 
ever, when it was first made by Sir W. Herschel, this as- 
sumption has been purely gratuitous ; and it now proves 
to be totally inadmissible. But, awkwardly enough, its 
truth and its untruth are alike fatal to the conclusions of 
those who argue after the manner of Humboldt. Note the 
alternative. 

On the one hand, what follows from the untruth of the 
assumption ? If apparent largeness of stars is not due to 
comparative nearness, and their successively smaller sizes 
to then- greater and greater degrees of remoteness, what 
becomes of the inferences respecting the dimensions of our 
sidereal system and the distances of nebulae ? If, as has 

* Cosmos. (Seventh Edition.) Vol. i. pp. 79, 80. 



MAGNITUDES AND DISTANCES OF STARS. 247 

lately been shown, the almost invisible star 61 Cygni has a 
greater parallax than a Cygni, though, according to an es- 
timate based on Sir W. Herschel's assumption, it should be 
about twelve times more distant — if, as it turns out, there 
exist telescopic stars which are nearer to us than Sirius ; oJ 
what worth is the conclusion that the nebula? are very re 
mote, because their component luminous masses are made 
visible only by high telescopic powers ? Clearly, if the 
most brilliant star in the heavens and a star that cannot be 
seen by the naked eye, prove to be equidistant, relative 
distances cannot be in the least inferred from relative visi- 
bilities. And if so, nebula? may be comparatively near, 
though the starlets of which they are made up appear ex- 
tremely minute. 

On the other haxid, what follows if the truth of the as- 
sumption be granted f The arguments used to justify tnis 
assumption in the case of the stars, equally justify it in the 
case of the nebula?. It cannot be contended that, on the 
average, the apparent sizes of the stars indicate their dis- 
tances, without its being admitted that, on the average, the 
apparent sizes of the nebulae indicate their distances — that, 
generally speaking, the larger are the nearer, and the 
smaller are the more distant. Mark, now, the necessary 
inference respecting their resolvability. The largest or 
nearest nebula? will be most easily resolved into stars ; the 
successively smaller will be successively more difficult of 
resolution ; and the irresolvable ones will be the smallest 
ones. This, however, is exactly the reverse of the fact. 
The largest nebula? are either wholly irresolvable, or but 
partially resolvable under the highest telescopic powers ; 
while a great proportion of quite small nebula?, are easily 
resolved by far less powerful telescopes. An instrument 
through which the great nebula in Andromeda, two and a 
half degrees long and one degree broad, appears merely as 
a diffused light, decomposes a nebula of fifteen minutes di- 



248 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 

araeter into twenty thousand starry points, At the same 
time that the individual stars of a nebula eight minutes in 
diameter are so clearly seen as to allow of their number 
being estimated, a nebula covering an area five hundred 
times as great shows no stars at all. What possible expla- 
nation can be given of this on the current hypothesis? 

Yet a further difficulty remains — one which is, perhaps, 
still more obviously fatal than the foregoing. This diffi- 
culty is presented by the phenomena of the Magellanic 
clouds. Describing the larger of these, Sir John Herschel 



" The nubecula major, like the minor, consists partly of large 
tracts and ill-defined patches of irresolvable nebula, and of nebu- 
losity in every stage of resolution, up to perfectly resolved stai'8 
like the Milky "Way ; as also of regular and irregular nebulae prop- 
erly so called, of globular clusters in every stage of resolvability, 
and of clustering groups sufficiently insulated and condensed to 
come under the designation of ' cluster of stars.' " — " Cape Ob- 
servations," p. 146. 

In his " Outlines of Astronomy," Sir John Herschel, af- 
ter repeating this description in other words, goes on to 
remark that — 

" This combination of characters, rightly considered, is in a 
high degree instructive, affording an insight into the probable 
comparative distance of stars and nebulae, and the real brightness 
of individual stars as compared with one another. Taking the 
apparent semi-diameter of the nubecula major at three degrees, 
and regarding its solid form as, roughly speaking, spherical, its 
nearest and most remote parts differ in their distance from us by 
a little more than a tenth part of our distance from its centre. 
The brightness of objects situated in its nearer portions, there- 
fore, cannot be much exaggerated, nor that of its remoter much 
enfeebled, by their difference of distance. Yet within this globu- 
lar space we have collected upwards of six hundred stars of the 
seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth magnitude, nearly three hundred 



NEBULA NO MORE REMOTE THAN STARS. 249 

nebulae, and globular and other clusters of all degrees of resolva* 
bilily, and smaller scattered stars of every inferior magnitude, 
from the tenth to such as by their magnitude and minuteness con- 
stitute irresolvable nebulosity, extending over tracts of many 
square degrees. Were there but one such object, it might be 
maintained -without utter improbability that its apparent spheri- 
city is only an effect of foreshortening, and that in reality a much 
greater proportional difference of distance between its nearer and 
more remote parts exists. But such an adjustment, improbable 
enough in one case, must be rejected as too much so for fair argu- 
ment in two. It must, therefore, be taken as a demonstrated fact, 
that stars of the seventh or eighth magnitude, and irresolvable 
nebula, may co-exist within limits of distance not differing in pro- 
portion more than as nine to ten." — " Outlines of Astronomy," 
pp. 614, 615. 

Now, we think this supplies a reductio ad absurdum 
of the doctrine we ai'e combating. It gives us the choice 
of two incredibilities. If we are to believe that one of 
these nebulae is so remote that its hundred thousand stars 
look like a milky spot, invisible to the naked eye ; we must 
also believe that there are single stars so enormous that 
though removed to this same distance they remain visible. 
If we accept the other alternative, and say that many neb- 
ulae are no further off than our own stars of the eighth 
magnitude ; then it is requisite to say that at a distance not 
greater than that at which a single star is still faintly visi- 
ble to the naked eye, there may exist a group of a hundred 
thousand stars which is invisible to the naked eye. Neither 
of these positions can be entertained. What, then, is the 
conclusion that remains? This, only: — that the nebulae 
are not further off from us than parts of our own sidereal 
system, of which they must be considered members ; and 
that when they are resolvable into discrete masses, these 
masses cannot be considered as stars in anything like the 
ordinary sense of that word. 

And now, having seen the untenability of this idea, 



250 THE NEBULAB HYPOTHESIS. 

rashly espoused by sundry astronomers, that the nebula 
are extremely remote galaxies ; let us consider whethej 
the various appearances they present are not reconcile 
able with the Nebular Hypothesis. 

Given a rare and widely-diffused mass of nebulous mat- 
ter, having a diameter, say as great as the distance from 
the Sun to Sirius,* what are the successive changes that 
will take place in it ? Mutual gravitation will approxi 
mate its atoms ; but their approximation will be opposed 
by atomic repulsion, the overcoming of which implies the 
evolution of heat. As fast as this heat partially escapes by 
radiation, further approximation will take place, attended 
by further evolution of heat, and so on continuously : the 
processes not occurring separately as here described, but 
simultaneously, uninterruptedly, and with increasing ac- 
tivity. Eventually, this slow movement of the atoms to- 
wards their common centre of gravity, will bring about 
phenomena of another order. 

Arguing from the known laws of atomic combination, 
it will happen that when the nebulous mass has reached a 
particular stage of condensation — when its internally-situa- 
ted atoms have approached to within certain distances, 
have generated a certain amount of heat, and are subject 
to a certain mutual pressure (the, heat and pressure both 
increasing as the aggregation progresses) ; some of them 
will suddenly enter into chemical union. Whether the 
binary atoms so produced be of kinds such as we know, 
which is possible ; or whether they be of kinds simpler 
thir: any we know, which is more probable ; matters not 
to the argument. It suffices that molecular combination 
of some species will finally take place. "When it does take 

* Any objection made to the extreme tenuity this involves, is met by 
the calculation of Newton, who proved that were a spherical rich of air 
removed four thousand miles from the Earth, it would expand into a 
sphere more than filling the orbit of Saturn. 



CONDITIONS OF CONDENSATION. 251 

place, it will be accompanied by a great and sudden disen- 
gagement of beat ; and until tbis excess of beat bas 
escaped, tbe newly-formed binary atoms will remain uni- 
formly diffused, or, as it were, dissolved in tbe pre-exist- 
ing nebulous medium. 

But now mark wbat must by-and-by bappen. Wben 
radiation bas adequately lowered tbe temperature, tbese 
binary atoms will precipitate ; and baving precipitated, 
tbey will not remain uniformly diffused, but will aggre- 
gate into flocculi: just as water, precipitated from air, 
collects into clouds. Tbis d priori conclusion is confirmed 
by tbe observation of tbose still extant portions of nebu- 
lous matter wbicb constitute comets ; for, " tbat tbe lumi- 
nous part of a comet is sometbing in tbe nature of a 
smoke, fog, or cloud, suspended in a transparent atmos- 
pbere, is evident," says Sir Jobn Herscbel. 

Concluding, then, tbat a nebulous mass will, in course 
of time, resolve itself into flocculi of precipitated denser 
matter, floating in tbe rarer medium from wbicb tbey were 
precipitated, let us inquire wbat will be tbe mecbanical 
results. We sball find tbat tbey will be quite different 
from those occurring in the original homogeneous mass ; 
and also quite different from those wbicb would occur 
among discrete masses dispersed through empty space. 
Of clustered bodies in empty space, each will move along 
a line which is the resultant of the tractive forces exercised 
by all tbe rest, modified from moment to moment by the 
acquired motion. So, too, with bodies dispersed through 
a resisting medium, provided they are spherical. But 
irregular bodies dispersed through a resisting medium will 
not severally do this. A mass which presents an irregular 
face to its line of movement through a resisting medium, 
must be deflected from its otherwise-determined course, by 
tbe unequal reactions on its different sides. Hence the 
flocculi, as, by analogy, we term these precipitated masses 



252 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

of gas or vapour, will severally acquire movements not 
such as will make them meet directly in the common 
centre of gravity, but such as will carry them severally to 
one or other side of it ; and their movements, accelerated 
as well as changed in direction by the increasing centripetal 
force, but retarded by the resisting medium, will result in 
something like spirals finally ending in the common centre 
of gravity. Observe, however, that this conclusion by no 
means implies a common spiral movement of all the floc- 
culi ; for as they must not only be varied in their forms, 
but disposed in all varieties of position, their respective 
movements will be deflected, not towards one side of the 
common centre of gravity, but towards various sides. 
How then can there result a spiral movement common to 
them all ? Very simply. Each flocculus, in describing 
its spiral course, must give motion to the rarer medium 
through which it is moving. 

Now, the probabilities are infinity to one against all the 
respective motions thus impressed on this rarer medium, 
exactly balancing each other. And if they do not balance 
each other, the inevitable result must be a rotation of the 
whole mass of the rarer medium in one direction. But 
preponderating momentum in one direction, having caused 
rotation of the medium in that direction, the rotating 
medium must in its turn gradually arrest such flocculi as 
are moving in opposition, and impress its own motion upon 
them ; and thus there will ultimately be formed a rotating 
medium with suspended flocculi partaking of its motion, 
while they move in converging spirals towards the com- 
mon centre of gravity. 

Before comparing these conclusions with the facts, let 
us pursue the reasoning a little further, and observe the 
subordinate actions, and the endless modifications which 
will result from them. The respective flocculi must not 
only be drawn towards their common centre of gravity, 



HTCTIAL MOTION OF NEBULOUS MATTER. 253 

but also towards neighbouring flocculi. Hence the whole 
assemblage of flocculi will break up into subordinate 
groups : each group concentrating towards its local centre 
of gravity, and in so doing acquiring a vortical movement, 
like that subsequently acquired by the whole nebula. 
Now, according to circumstances, and chiefly according to 
the size of the original nebulous mass, this process of local 
aggregation will produce various results. If the whole 
nebula is but small, the local groups of flocculi may be 
drawn into the common centre of gravity before their con- 
stituent masses have coalesced with each other. In a 
larger nebula, these local aggregations may have concen- 
trated into rotating spheroids of vapour, while yet they 
have made but little approach towards the general focus of 
the system. In a still larger nebula, where the local aggre- 
gations are both greater and more remote from the com- 
mon centre of gravity, they may have condensed into 
masses of molten matter before the general distribution of 
them has greatly altered. In short, as the conditions in 
each case determine, the discrete masses produced may 
vary indefinitely in number, in size, in density, in motion, 
in distribution. 

And now let us return to the visible characters 
of the nebulae, as observed through modern telescopes. 
Take first the description of those nebulae which, by the 
hypothesis, must be in an early stage of evolution. 

" Among the irregular nebulae," says Sir John Herschel, " may 
oe comprehended all which, to a want of complete, and in most 
instances, even of partial resolv ability by the power of the 20-feet 
reflector, unite such a deviation from the circular or elliptic form, 
or such a want of symmetry (with that form) as preclude their 
being placed in Class 1, or that of regular nebula?. This second 
class comprises many of the most remarkable and interesting ob- 
jects in the heavens, as well as the most extensive in respect of ih* 
area they occupy." 



254: THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

And, referring to this same order of objects, M. Arago 
says : — " The forms of very large diffuse nebulas do 
not appear to admit of definition ; they have no regular 
outline." 

Now this coexistence of largeness, irresolvability, 
irregularity, and indefiniteness of outline, is extremely 
significant. The fact that the largest nebulas are either 
irresolvable or very difficult to resolve, might have been 
inferred a priori ; seeing that irresolvability, implying that 
the aggregation of precipitated matter has gone on to but 
a small extent, will be found in nebulas of wide diffusion. 
Again, the irregularity of these large, irresolvable nebulas, 
might also have been expected ; seeing that their out- 
lines, compared by Arago to " the fantastic figures which 
characterize clouds carried away and tossed about by 
violent and often contrary winds," are similarly charac- 
teristic of a mass not yet gathered together by the 
mutual attraction of its parts. And once more, the fact 
that these large, irregular, irresolvable nebulas have 
indefinite outlines — outlines that fade off insensibly into 
surrounding darkness — is one of like meaning. 

Speaking generally (and of course differences of dis- 
tance negative anything beyond an average statement), the 
spiral nebulas are smaller than the irregular nebulas, and 
more resolvable ; at the same time that they are not so 
small as the regular nebulas, and not so resolvable. This is 
as, according to the hypothesis, it should be. The degree of 
condensation causing spiral movement, is a degree of con- 
densation also implying masses of flocculi that are larger, 
and therefore more visible, than those existing in an earlier 
stage. Moreover, the forms of these spiral nebulas are 
quite in harmony with the explanation given. The curves 
of luminous matter which they exhibit, are not such as 
would be described by more or less discrete masses start- 
ing from a state of rest, and moving through a resisting 



STRUCTURE OF SPIRAL NEBULA. 255 

medium to a common centre of gravity ; but they an such 
as would be described by masses having their movements 
modified by the rotation of the medium. 

In the centre of a spiral nebula is seen a mass both 
more luminous and more resolvable than the rest. As- 
sume that, in process of time, all the spiral streaks of 
luminous matter which converge to this centre are drawn 
into it, as they must be ; assume further, that the flocculi 
or other discrete bodies constituting these luminous streaks 
aggregate into larger masses at the same time that they 
approach the central group, and that the masses forming 
this central group also aggregate into larger masses (both 
which are necessary assumptions) ; and there will finally 
result a more or less globular group of such larger masses, 
which will be resolvable with comparative ease. And, as 
the coalescence and concentration go on, the constituent 
masses will gradually become fewer, larger, brighter, and 
more densely collected around the common centre of gravi- 
ty. See now how completely this inference agrees with 
observation. " The circular form is that which most com- 
monly characterizes resolvable nebulse," writes Arago. 
" Resolvable nebulae," says Sir John Herschel, " are almost 
universally round or oval.'-' Moreover, the centre of each 
group habitually displays a closer clustering of the consti- 
tuent masses than elsewhere ; and it is shown that, under 
the law of gravitation, which we know extends to the stars, 
this distribution is not one of equilibrium, but implies pro- 
gressing concentration. While, just as we inferred that, 
according to circumstances, the extent to which aggrega- 
tion has been carried must vary ; so we find that, in fact, 
there are regular nebulas of all degrees of resolvability, 
from those consisting of innumerable minute discrete 
masses, to those in which there are a few large bodies 
worthy to be called stars. 

On the one hand, then, we see that the notion, of 



256 THE NEBULAK HYPOTHESIS. 

late years uncritically received, that the nebulas are ex- 
tremely remote galaxies of stars like those which make up 
our own Milky Way, is totally irreconcileable with the 
facts — involves us in sundry absurdities. On the other 
hand, we see that the hypothesis of nebular condensation 
harmonizes with the most recent results of stellar astrono- 
my : nay more — that it supplies us with an explanation 
of various appearances which in its absence would be in- 
comprehensible. 

Descending now to the Solar System, let us consider 
first a class of phenomena in some sort transitional — those 
offered by comets. In comets we have now existing a 
kind of matter like that out of which, according to the 
Nebular Hypothesis, the Solar System was evolved. For 
the explanation of them, we must hence go back to the time 
when the substances forming the sun and planets were yet 
unconcentrated. 

When diffused matter, precipitated from a rarer 
medium, is aggregating, there are certain to be here and 
there produced sinall flocculi, which, either in consequence 
of local currents or the conflicting attractions of adjacent 
masses, remain detached ; as do, for instance, minute 
shreds of cloud in a summer sky. In a concentrating 
nebula these will, in the great majority of cases, eventually 
coalesce with the larger flocculi near to them. But it is 
tolerably evident that some of the remotest of these small 
flocculi, formed at the outermost parts of the nebula, will 
>iot coalesce with the larger internal masses, but will slowly 
follow without overtaking them. The relatively greater 
resistance of the medium necessitates this. As a single 
feather falling to the ground will be rapidly left behind by 
a pillow-full of feathers ; so, in their progress to the com- 
mon centre of gravity, wiU the outermost shreds of vapour 
be left behind by the great masses of vapour internally 



CONDITIONS OF CONCENTRATION. 257 

situated. But we are not dependent merely on reasoning 
for this belief. Observation shows us that the less con« 
centrated external parts of nebulae, are left behind by the 
more concentrated, internal parts. Examined through high 
powers, all nebulae, even when they have assumed regular 
forms, are seen to be surrounded by luminous streaks, of 
which the directions show that they are being drawn into 
the general mass. Still higher powers bring into view still 
smaller, fainter, and more widely-dispersed streaks. And 
it cannot be doubted that the minute fragments which no 
telescopic aid makes visible, are yet more numerous and 
widely dispersed. Thus far, then, inference and observa- 
tion are at one. 

Granting that the great majority of these outlying por- 
tions of nebulous matter will be drawn into the central 
mass long before it reaches a definite form, the presump- 
tion is that some of the very small, far-removed portiona 
will not be so ; but that before they arrive near it, the cen- 
tral mass will have contracted into a comparatively moder- 
ate bulk. What now will be the characters of these late- 
arriving portions ? 

In the first place, they will have extremely eccentric 
orbits. Left behind at a time when they were moving to- 
wards the centre of gravity in slightly-deflected lines, and 
therefore having but very small angular velocities, they 
will approach the central mass in greatly elongated ellipses; 
and rushing round it will go off again into space. That is, 
they will behave just as we see comets do ; whose orbits 
are usually so eccentric as to be indistinguishable from 
parabolas. 

In the second place, they will come from all parts of 
the heavens. Our supposition implies that they were left 
oehind at a time when the nebulous mass was of irregu- 
lar shape, and had not acquired a definite rotary motion ; 
and as the separation of them would not be from any 



258 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

one surface of the nebulous mass more than another 
the conclusion must he that they will come to the cen- 
tral body from various directions in space. This, too, 
is exactly what happens. Unlike planets, whose orbits 
approximate to one plane, comets have orbits that show no 
relation to each other ; but cut the plane of the ecliptic at 
all angles. 

In the third place, applying the reasoning already 
used, these remotest flocculi of nebulous matter will, at 
the outset, be deflected from their straight courses to the 
common centre of gravity, not all on one side, but each 
on such side as its form determines. And being left be- 
hind before the rotation of the nebula is set up, they 
will severally retain their different individual motions. 
Hence, following the concentrating mass, they will event- 
ually go round it on all sides ; and as often from right to 
left as from left to right. Here again the inference per- 
fectly corresponds with the facts. While all the planets 
go round the sun from west to east, comets as often go 
round the sun from east to west as from west to east. Out 
of 210 comets known in 1855, 104 are direct, and 106 are 
retrograde. This equality is what the law of probabilities 
would indicate. 

Then, in the fourth place, the physical constitution of 
comets completely accords with the hypothesis. The abil- 
ity of nebulous matter to concentrate into a concrete form, 
depends on its mass. To bring its ultimate atoms into that 
proximity requisite for chemical union — requisite, that is, 
for the production of denser matter — their repulsion must 
be overcome. The only force antagonistic to their repul- 
sion, is their mutual gravitation. That their mutual gravi- 
tation may generate a pressure and temperature of suffi- 
cient intensity, there must be an enormous accumulation of 
them ; and even then the approximation can slowly go on 
only as fast as the evolved heat escapes. But where the 



CONSTITUTION AND MOVEMENTS OF COMETS. 259 

quantity of atoms is small, and therefore the force of mu- 
tual gravitation small, there will be nothing to coerce the 
atoms into union. Whence we infer that these detached 
fragments of nebulous matter will continue in their origi- 
nal state. We find that they do so. Comets consist of an 
extremely rare medium, which, as shown by the descrip 
tion already quoted from Sir John Herschel, has charac 
ters like those we concluded would belong to partially- 
condensed nebulous matter. 

Yet another very significant fact is seen in the distribu- 
tion of comets. Though they come from all parts of the 
heavens, they by no means come in equal abundance from 
all parts of the heavens ; but are far more numerous about 
the poles of the ecliptic than about its plane. Speaking 
generally, comets having orbit-planes that are highly in- 
clined to the ecliptic, are comets having orbits of which the 
major axes are highly inclined to the ecliptic — comets that 
come from high latitudes. This is not a necessary connex- 
ion ; for the planes of the orbits might be highly inclined 
to the ecliptic while the major axes were inclined to it very 
little. But in the absence of any habitually-observed rela- 
tion of this kind, it may safely be concluded that, on the 
average, highly-inclined cometary orbits are cometary or- 
bits with highly-inclined major axes ; and that thus, a pre- 
dominance of cometary orbits cutting the plane of the 
ecliptic at great angles, implies a predominance of comet- 
ary orbits having major axes that cut the ecliptic at great 
angles. Now the predominance of highly inclined com- 
etary orbits, may be gathered from the following table, 
compiled by M. Arago, to which we have added a column 
giving the results up to a date two years later. 



260 



THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 





Number of 


Number of 


Number of 


Inclinations. 


Comets 


Comets 


Comets 




in 1831. 


in 1S53. 


in 1855. 


Deg. Deg. 








From to 10 


9 


19 


19 


" 10 " 20 


13 


18 


19 


" 20 " 30 


10 


13 


14 


" 30 " 40 


17 


22 


22 


" 40 " 50 


14 


35 


36 


" 50 " 60 


23 


27 


29 


" 60 " 70 


17 


23 


25 


" 70 " 80 


19 


26 


27 


" 80 " 90 


15 


i 1S 


19 


Total .. 


137 


j 201 


210 



At first sight this table seems not to warrant our state- 
ment. Assuming the alleged general relation between the 
inclinations of cometary orbits, and the directions in space 
from which the comets come, the table may be thought to 
show that the frequency of comets increases as we progress 
from the plane of the ecliptic up to 45°, and then decreases 
up to 90°. But this apparent diminution arises from the 
fact that the successive zones of space rapidly dimmish in 
their areas on approaching the poles. If we allow for 
this, we shall find that the excess of comets continues to 
increase up to the highest angles of inclination. In the 
table below, which, for convenience, is arranged in inverted 
order, we have taken as standards of comparison the area 
of the zone round the pole, and the number of comets it 
contains ; and having ascertained the areas of the other 
zones, and the numbers of comets they should contain were 
comets equally distributed, we have shown how great b«- 
comes the deficiency in descending from the poles cf the 
ecliptic to its plane. 



DISTRIBUTION OF COMETS. 



261 



Between 


Area 
of Zone. 


Number of 
Comets, if 

equally 
distributed. 


Actual 

Number of 

Comets. 


Deficiency. 


Relative 
Abundance. 


Deg. Deg. 












90 and 80 


1 


19 


19 





11-5 


80 " 70 


2-98 


56-6 


27 


29-6 


55 


70 " 60 


4-85 


92 


25 


67 


3-12 


60 " 50 


6-6 


125 


29 


96 


2-66 


50 " 40 


8-13 


154 


36 


118 


2-68 


40 " 30 


9-42 


179 


22 


157 


1-4 


30 " 20 


10-42 


198 


14 


184 


0-8 


20 " 10 


11-1 


210 


19 


191 


1-04 


10 " 


11-5 


218 


19 


199 


1 



In strictness, the calculation should be made with refer- 
ence, not to the plane of the ecliptic, but to the plane of 
the sun's equator ; and this might or might not render the 
progression more regular. Probably, too, the progression 
would be made somewhat different were the calculation 
based, as it should be, not on the inclinations of orbit- 
planes, but on the inclinations of major axes. But even as 
it is, the result is sufficiently significant : since, though the 
conclusion that comets are 11*5 times more abundant about 
the poles of the ecliptic than about its plane, can be but a 
rough approximation to the truth, yet no correction of it is 
likely very much to change this strong contrast. 

What, then, is the meaning of this fact ? It has sev- 
eral meanings. It negatives the supposition, favoured by 
Laplace among others, that comets are bodies that were 
wandering in space, or have come from other systems ; for 
the probabilities are infinity to one against the orbits of 
such wandering bodies showing any definite relation to the 
plane of the Solar System. For the like reason, it nega- 
tives the hypothesis of Lagrange, otherwise objectionable, 
that comets have resulted from planetary catastrophes 
analogous to that which is supposed to have produced the 
asteroids. It clearly shows that, instead of comets being 
accidental members of the Solar System, they are necessary 



202 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

members of it — have as distinct a structural relation to it 
as the planets themselves. That comets are abundant 
round the axis of the Solar System, and grow rarer as we 
approach its plane, implies that the genesis of comets haa 
followed some law — a law in some way concerned with the 
genesis of the Solar System. 

If we ask for any so-called final cause of this arrange- 
ment, none can be assigned : until a probable use for com- 
ets has been shown, no reason can be given why they 
should be thus distributed. But when we consider the 
question as one of physical science, we see that comets are 
antithetical to planets, not only in their great rarity, in 
their motions as indifferently direct or retrograde, in their 
eccentric orbits, and in the varied directions of those or- 
bits ; but we see the antithesis further marked in this, that 
while planets have some relation to the plane of nebular 
rotation, comets have some relation to the axis of nebular 
rotation.* And without attempting to explain the nature 
of this relation, the mere fact that such a relation exists, 
indicates that comets have resulted from a process of evo- 
lution — points to a past time when the matter now forming 
the Solar System extended to those distant regions of space 
which comets visit. 

See, then, how differently this class of phenomena bears 
on the antagonistic hypotheses. To the hypothesis com- 
monly received, comets are stumbling-blocks : why there 
should be hundreds (or probably thousands) of extremely 
rare aeriform masses rushing to and fro round the sun, it 
cannot say ; any more than it can explain their physical 
constitutions, their various and eccentric movements, or 

* It is alike remarkable and suggestive, that a parallel relation exists 
between the distribution of nebulas and the axis of our galaxy. Just as 
comets are abundant around the poles of our Solar System, and rare in the 
neighbourhood of its plane : so are nebulas abundant around the poles of 
our sidereal system, and rare ir. the neighbourhood of its plane. 



IT EXPLAINS COMETARY PHENOMENA. 263 

their distribution. The hypothesis of evolution, on the 
other hand, not only allows of the general answer, that 
they are minor results of the genetic process ; but also fur- 
nishes us with something like explanations of their several 
iarities. 



pecul 



And now, leaving these erratic bodies, let us turn to 
the more familiar and important members of the Solar Sys- 
tem. It was the remarkable harmony subsisting among 
their movements, which first made Laplace conceive that 
the sun, planets, and satellites had resulted from a common 
genetic process. As Sir William Herschel, by his observa- 
tions on the nebulae, was led to the conclusion that stars re- 
sulted from the aggregation of diffused matter ; so Laplace, 
by his observations on the structure of the Solar System, 
was led to the conclusion that only by the rotation of ag- 
gregating matter were its peculiarities to be explained. In 
his " Exposition du Systeme du Monde," he enumerates as 
the leading evidences of evolution : — 1. The movements of 
the planets in the same direction and almost in the same 
plane ; 2. The movements of the satellites in the same di- 
rection as those of the planets ; 3. The movement of rota- 
tion of these various bodies and of the sun in the same direc- 
tion as the orbitual motions, and in planes little different ; 
4. The small eccentricity of the orbits of the planets and 
satellites, as contrasted with the great eccentricity of the 
cometary orbits. And the probability that these harmoni- 
ous movements had a common cause, he calculates as two 
hundred thousand billions to one. 

Observe that this immense preponderance of probabil- 
ity does not point to a common cause under the form ordi- 
narily conceived — an Invisible Power working after the me- 
thod of " a Great Artificer ; " but to an Invisible Power 
working after the method of evolution. For though the 
supporters of the common hypothesis may argue that it 
13 



264 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

was necessary for the sake of stability that the planets 
should go round the sun in the same direction and nearly 
in one plane, they cannot thus account for the direction of 
the axial motions. The mechanical equilibrium would not 
have been at all interfered with, had the sun been without 
any rotatory movement ; or had he revolved on his axis in 
a direction opposite to that in which the planets go round 
him ; or in a direction at right angles to the plane of their 
orbits. With equal safety the motion of the Moon round 
the Earth might have been the reverse of the Earth's mo- 
tion round its axis ; or the motion of Jupiter's satellites 
might similarly have been at variance with his axial motion • 
or that of Saturn's satellites with his. As, however, none of 
these alternatives have been followed, the uniformity must be 
considered, in this case as in all others, evidence of sub- 
ordination to some general law — implies what we call natu- 
ral causation, as distinguished from arbitrary arrangement. 

Hence the hypothesis of evolution would be the only 
probable one, even in the absence of any clue to the partic- 
ular mode of evolution. But when we have, propounded 
by a mathematician whose authority is second to none, a 
definite theory of this evolution based on established me- 
chanical laws, which accounts for these various peculiarities, 
as well as for many minor ones, the conclusion that the So- 
lar System toas evolved becomes almost irresistible. 

The general nature of Laplace's theory scarcely needs 
stating. Books of popular astronomy have familiarized 
most readers with his conceptions ; — namely, that the mat- 
ter now condensed into the Solar System, once formed a 
vast rotating spheroid of extreme rarity extending beyond 
the orbit of Neptune ; that as this spheroid contracted, its 
rate of rotation necessarily increased ; that by augmenting 
centrifugal force its equatorial zone was from time to time 
prevented from following any further the concentrating 
mass, and so remained behind as a revolving ring ; that 



laplace's theoky of planetary evolution. 265 

|l each of the revolving rings thus periodically detached, 
eventually became ruptured at its weakest point, and con- 
tracting on itself, gradually aggregated into a rotating 
mass ; that this, like the parent mass, increased in rapidity 
of rotation as it decreased in size, and, where the centrifu- 
gal force was sufficient, similarly threw off rings, which fi- 
nally collapsed into rotating spheroids ; and that thus out of 
these primary and secondary rings there arose planets and 
their satellites, while from the central mass there resulted the 
sun. Moreover, it is tolerably well known that this d pri- 
ori reasoning harmonizes with the results of experiment. 
Dr. Plateau has shown that when a mass of fluid is, as far 
may be, protected from the action of external forces, it 
will, if made to rotate with adequate velocity, form detach- 
ed rings ; and that these rings will break up into spheroids 
which turn on their axes in the same direction with the 
central mass. Thus, given the original nebula, which, ac- 
quiring a vortical motion in the way we have explained, 
has at length concentrated into a vast spheroid of aeriform 
matter moving round its axis — given this, and mechanical 
principles explain the rest. The genesis of a solar system 
displaying movements like those observed, maybe predicted ; 
and the reasoning on which the prediction is based is coun- 
tenanced by experiment.* 

* It is true that, as expressed by him, these propositions of Laplace 
are not all beyond dispute. An astronomer of the highest authority, who 
has favoured me with some criticisms on this essay, alleges that instead of 
a nebulous ring rupturing at one point, and collapsing into a single mass, 
" all probability would be in favour of its breaking up into many masses." 
This alternative result certainly seems to be more likely. But granting 
that a nebulous ring would break up into many masses, it may still be con- 
tended that, siuce the chances are infinity to one against these being of 
equal sizes and equidistant, they could not remain evenly distributed round 
the'u orbit : this annular chain of gaseous masses would break up into 
groups of masses ; these groups would eventually aggregate into larger 
groups ; and the final result wo> dd be the formation of a single mass. 1 



266 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

But now let us inquire whether, besides these most con 
spicuous peculiarities of the Solar System, sundry minor ones 
are not similarly explicable. Take first the relation be 
tween the planes of the planetary orbits and the plane of 
the sun's equator. If, when the nebulous spheroid extend- 
ed beyond the orbit of Neptune, all parts of it had been 
revolving exactly in the same plane or rather in parallel 
planes — if all its parts had had one axis; then the planes 
of the successive rings would have been coincident with 
each other and with that of the sun's rotation. But it 
needs only to go back to the earlier stages of concentration, 
to see that there could exist no such complete uniformity 
of motion. The flocculi, already described as precipitated 
from an irregular and widely-diffused nebula, and as start- 
ing from all points to their common centre of gravity, must 
move not in one plane but in innumerable planes, cutting 
^ach other at all angles. 

The gradual establishment of a vortical motion such as 
we saw must eventually arise, and such as we at present 
see indicated in the spiral nebulre, is the gradual approach 
toward motion in one plane — the plane of greatest momen- 
tum. But this plane can only slowly become decided. 
Flocculi not moving in this plane, but entering into the 
aggregation at various inclinations, will tend to perform 
their revolutions round its centre in their own planes ; and 
only in course of time will their motions be partly destroy- 
ed by conflicting ones, and partly resolved into the general 
motion. Especially will the outermost portions of the ro- 
tating mass retain for long time their more or less indepen- 
dent directions ; seeing that neither by friction nor by the 
central forces will they be so much restrained. Hence the 
probabilities are, that the planes of the rings first detached 

have put the question to an astronomer scarcely second in authority to the 
one above referred to, and he agrees that this would probably be the pro- 
cess. 



ANOMALY IN THE MOVEMENT OF SATELLITES. 267 

will differ considerably from the average plane of the mass ; 
while the planes of those detached latest will differ from it 
less. Here, again, inference to a considerable extent agrees 
with obseiwation. Though the progression is irregular, yet 
on the average the inclinations decrease on approaching the 
sun. 

Consider next the movements of the planets on their 
axes. Laplace alleged as one among other evidences of 
a common genetic cause, that the planets rotate in a direc- 
tion the same as that in which they go round the sun, and 
on axes approximately perpendicular to their orbits. Since 
he wrote, an exception to this general rule has been discov- 
ered in the case of Uranus, and another still more recently 
in the case of Neptune — judging, at least, from the mo- 
tions of their respective satellites. This anomaly has been 
thought to throw considerable doubt on his speculation ; 
and at first sight it does so. But a little reflection will, 
we believe, show that the anomaly is by no means an insol- 
uble one ; and that Laplace simply went too far in putting 
down as a certain result of nebular genesis, what is, in some 
instances, only a probable result. The cause he pointed 
out as determining the direction of rotation, is the greater 
absolute velocity of the outer part of the detached ring. 
But there are conditions under which this difference of ve- 
locity may be relatively insignificant, even if it exists : and 
others in which, though existing to a considerable extent, it 
will not suffice to determine the direction of rotation. 

Note, in the first place, that in virtue of their origin, 
the different strata of a concentrating nebulous spheroid, 
will be very unlikely to move with equal angular veloci- 
ties : only by friction continued for an indefinite time will 
their angular velocities be made uniform ; and especially 
will the outermost strata, for reasons just now assigned, 
maintain for the longest time their differences of move- 
ment. Hence, it is possible that in the rings first detached 



268 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

the outer rims may not have greater absolute velocities ; 
and thus the resulting planets may have retrograde rota- 
tions. Again, the sectional form of the ring is a circum- 
stance of moment ; and this form must have differed more 
or less in every case. To make this clear, some illustra- 
tion will be necessary. Suppose we take an orange, and 
assuming the marks of the stalk and the calyx to represent 
the poles, cut off round the line of the equator a strip of 
peel. This strip of peel, if placed on the table with its 
ends meeting, will make a ring shaped like the hoop of a 
barrel — a ring whose thickness in the line of its diameter 
is very small, but whose width in a direction perpendicular 
to its diameter is considerable. Suppose, now, that in 
place of an orange, which is a spheroid of very slight 
oblateness, we take a spheroid of very great oblateness, 
shaped somewhat like a lens of small convexity. If from 
the edge or equator of this lens-shaped spheroid, a ring of 
moderate size were cut off, it would be unlike the previous 
ring in this respect, that its greatest thickness would be in 
the line of its diameter, and not in a line at right angles 
to its diameter : it would be a ring shaped somewhat 
like a quoit, only far more slender. That is to say, ac- 
cording to the oblateness of a rotating spheroid, the de- 
tached ring may be either a hoop-shaped ring or a quoit- 
shaped ring. 

One further fact must be noted. In a much -flattened 
or lens-shaped spheroid, the form of the ring will vary with 
its bulk. A very slender ring, taking off just the equatorial 
surface, will be hoop-shaped ; while a tolerably massive 
ring, trenching appreciably on the diameter of the spheroid, 
will be quoit-shaped. Thus, then, according to the oblate- 
ness of the spheroid and the bulkiness of the detached ring, 
will the greatest thickness of that ring be in the direction 
of its plane, or in a direction perpendicular to its plane. 
But this circumstance must greatly affect the rotation of 



FORMATION OF NEBULOUS RINGS. 269 

the resulting planet. In a decidedly hoop-shaped nebulous 
ring, the differences of velocity between the inner and out- 
er surfaces will be very small ; and such a ring, aggrega- 
ting into a mass whose greatest diameter is at right angles 
to the plane of the orbit, will almost certainly give to this 
mass a predominant tendency to rotate in a direction at 
right angles to the plane of the orbit. Where the ring is 
but little hoop-shaped, and the difference of the inner and 
outer velocities also greater, as it must be, the opposing 
tendencies — one to produce rotation in the plane of the 
orbit, and the other rotation perpendicular to it — will 
both be influential ; and an intermediate plane of rota- 
tion will be taken up. While, if the nebulous ring is de- 
cidedly quoit-shaped, and therefore aggregates into a mass 
whose greatest dimension lies in the plane of the orbit, 
both tendencies will conspire to produce rotation in that 
plane. 

On referring to the facts, we find them, as far as can be 
judged, in harmony with this view. Considering the enor- 
mous circumference of TJranus's orbit, and his compara- 
tively small mass, we may conclude that the ring from 
which he resulted was a comparatively slender, and there- 
fore a hoop-shaped one : especially if the nebulous mass 
was at that time less oblate than afterwards, which it must 
have been. Hence, a plane of rotation nearly perpendicu- 
lar to his orbit, and a direction of rotation having no refer- 
ence to his orbitual movement. Saturn has a mass seven 
times as great, and an orbit of less than half the diameter ; 
whence it follows that his genetic ring, having less than 
half the circumference, and less than half the vertical thick- 
ness (the spheroid being then certainly as oblate, and in^ 
deed more oblate), must have had considerably greater 
width — must have been less hoop-shaped, and more ap- 
proaching to the quoit-shaped : notwithstanding difference 
of density, it must have been at least two or three times as 



270 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

broad in the line of its plane. Consequently, Saturn has a 
rotatory movement in the same direction as the movement 
of translation, and in a plane differing from it by thirty 
degrees only. 

In the case of Jupiter, again, whose mass is three and a 
half times that of Saturn, and whose orbit is little mere 
than half the size, the genetic ring must, for the like rea- 
sons, have been still broader — decidedly quoit-shaped, we 
may say ; and there hence resulted a planet whose plane of 
rotation differs from that of his orbit by scarcely more than 
three degrees. Once more, considering the comparative 
insignificance of Mars, Earth, Yenus, and Mercury, it fol- 
lows that the diminishing circumferences of the rings not 
sufficing to account for the smallness of the resulting 
masses, the rings must have been slender ones — must have 
again approximated to the hoop-shaped ; and thus it hap- 
pens that the planes of rotation again diverge more or 
less widely from those of the orbits. Taking into account 
the increasing oblateness of the original spheroid in the 
successive stages of its concentration, and the different 
proportions of the detached rings, it seems to us that the 
respective rotatory motions are not at variance with the 
hypothesis. 

Not only the directions, but also the velocities of rota- 
tion are thus explicable. It might naturally be supposed 
that the large planets would revolve on their axes more 
slowly than the small ones : our terrestrial experiences in- 
cline us to expect this. It is a corollary from the Nebular 
Hypothesis, however, more especially when interpreted as 
above, that while large planets will rotate rapidly, small 
ones will rotate slowly ; and we find that in fact they do 
so. Other things equal, a concentrating nebulous mass 
that is diffused through a wide space, and whose outer parts 
have, therefore, to travei from great distances to the com- 
mon centre of gravity, will acquire a high axial velocity in 



VELOCITIES OF PLANETARY ROTATION. 271 

course of its aggregation : and conversely with a small 
mass. Still more marked will be the difference where the 
form of the genetic ring conspires to increase the rate of 
rotation. Other things equal, a genetic ring that is 
broadest in the direction of its plane will produce a mass 
rotating faster than one that is broadest at right angle 
to its plane • and if the ring is absolutely as well as rela- 
tively broad, the rotation will be very rapid. These con- 
ditions were, as we saw, fulfilled in the case of Jupiter ; 
and Jupiter goes round his axis in less than ten hours. 
Saturn, in whose case, as above explained, the conditions 
were less favourable to rapid rotation, takes ten hours and 
a half. While Mars, Earth, Venus, and Mercury, whose 
rings must have been slender, take more than double the 
time : the smallest taking the longest. 

From the planets, let us now pass to the satellites. 
Here, beyond the conspicuous facts commonly adverted to, 
that they go round their primaries in the same directions 
that these turn on their axes, in planes diverging but 
little from their equators, and in orbits nearly circular, 
there are several significant traits which must not be passed 
over. 

One of them is, that each set of satellites repeats in 
miniature the relations of the planets to the sun, both in the 
respects just named, and in the order of the sizes. On pro- 
gressing from the outside of the Solar System to its centre, 
we see that there are four large external planets, and four 
internal ones which are comparatively small. A like con- 
trast holds between the outer and inner satellites in every 
case. Among the four satellites of Jupiter, the parallel is 
maintained as well as the comparative smallness of the num- 
ber allows : the two outer ones are the largest, and the 
two inner ones the smallest. According to the most recent 
observations made by Mr. Lassell, the like is true of the 
four satellites of Uianus. In the case of Saturn, who has 



272 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

eight secondary planets revolving round him, the like« 
ness is still more close in arrangement as in numher : 
the three outer satellites are large, the inner ones small ; 
and the contrasts of size are here much greater between 
the largest, which is nearly as big as Mars, and the 
smallest, which is with difficulty discovered even by the 
best telescopes. 

Moreover, the analogy does not end here. Just as with 
the planets, there is at first a general increase of size on 
travelling inwards from Neptune and Uranus, which do 
not differ very widely, to Saturn, which is much larger, 
and to Jupiter, which is the largest ; so of the eight satel- 
lites of Saturn, the largest is not the outermost, but the 
outermost save two ; so of Jupiter's four secondaries, the 
largest is the most remote but one. Now these analogies 
are inexplicable by the theory of final causes. For pur- 
poses of lighting, if this be the presumed object of these 
attendant bodies, it would have been far better had the 
larger been the nearer: at present, their remoteness ren- 
ders them of less service than the smallest. To the Nebu- 
lar Hypothesis, however, these analogies give further sup- 
port. They show the action of a common physical cause. 
They imply a law of genesis, holding in the secondary sys- 
tems as in the primary system. 

Still more instructive shall we find the distribution of 
the satellites — their absence in some instances, and their 
presence in other instances, in smaller or greater numbers- 
The argument from design fails to account for this distri- 
bution. Supposing it be granted that planets nearer the 
Sun than ourselves, have no need of moons (though, con- 
sidering that their nights are as dark, and, relatively to 
their brilliant days, even darker than ours, the need seems 
quite as great) — supposing this to be granted ; what is to 
be said of Mars, which, placed half as far again from the 
Sun as we are, has yet no moon ? Or again, how are we 



DISTRIBUTION OF SATELLITES. 273 

to explain the fact that Uranus has hut half as many moons 
as Saturn, though he is at double the distance ? While, 
however, the current presumption is untenable, the Nebu- 
lar Hypothesis furnishes us with an explanation. It actually 
enables us to predict, by a not very complex calculation, 
where satellites will be abundant and where they will be 
absent. The reasoning is as follows. 

In a rotating nebulous spheroid that is concentrating 
into a planet, there are at work two antagonist mechanical 
tendencies — the centripetal and the centrifugal. While 
the force of gravitation draws all the atoms of the spheroid- 
together, their tangential momentum is resolvable into two 
parts, of which one resists gravitation. The ratio which 
this centrifugal force bears to gravitation, varies, other 
things equal, as the square of the velocity. Hence, the 
aggregation of a rotating nebulous spheroid will be more 
or less strongly opposed by this outward impetus of its 
particles, according as its rate of rotation is high or low : 
the opposition, in equal spheroids, being four times as great 
when the rotation is twice as rapid ; nine times as great 
when it is three times as rapid ; and so on. Now, tbe de- 
tachment of a ring from a planet-forming body of nebulous 
matter, implies that at its equatorial zone the centrifugal 
force produced by concentration has become so great as to 
balance gravity. Whence it is tolerably obvious that the 
detachment of rings will be most frequent from those 
masses in which the centrifugal tendency bears the greatest 
ratio to the gravitative tendency. Though it is not possi- 
ble to calculate what proportions these two tendencies had 
to each other in the genetic spheroid which produced each 
planet ; it is possible to calculate where each was the great- 
est and where the least. While it is true that the ratio 
which centrifugal force now bears to gravity at the equa- 
tor of each planet, differs widely from that which it bore 
luring the earlier stages of concentration ; and while it is 



274 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

true that this change in the ratio, depending on the degree 
of contraction each planet has undergone, has in no two 
cases heen the same ; yet we may fairly conclude that 
where the ratio is still the greatest, it has heen the greatest 
from the beginning. The satellite-forming tendency which 
each planet had, will be approximately indicated by the 
proportion now existing in it between the aggregating 
power, and the power that has opposed aggregation. On 
making the requisite calculations, a remarkable harmony 
with this inference comes out. The following table shows 
what fraction the centrifugal force is of the centripetal force 
in every case ; and the relation which that fraction bears 
to the number of satellites. 



Mercury. 
1 


Venus. 
1 


Earth. 
1 


Mars. 
1 


Jupiter. 

1 


Saturn. 
1 


Uranus. 
1 


S62 


282 


289 


326 


14 


6-2 


9 






1 

Satellite. 




4 

Satellites. 


8 
Satellites 
and three 
rings. 


4 (or 6 ac- 
cording to 
Herschel.) 



Thus, taking as our standard of comparison the Earth 
*vith its one moon, we see that Mercury and Mars, in which 
the centrifugal force is relatively less, have no moons. Ju- 
piter, in which it is far greater, has four moons. Uranus, 
in which it is greater still, has certainly four, and probably 
more than four. Saturn, in which it is the greatest, being 
nearly one-sixth of gravity, has, including his rings, eleven 
attendants. The only instance in which there is imperfect 
conformity with observation is that of Venus. Here it ap<- 
pears that the centrifugal force is relatively a very little 
greater than in the Earth ; and according to the hypothesis, 
Venus ought, therefore, to have a satellite. Of this seem- 
mg anomaly there are two explanations. Not a few astron- 
omers have asserted that Venus has a satellite. Cassini, 
Short, Montaigne of Limoges, Roedkier, and Montbarron, 
professed to have seen it ; and Lambert calculated its ele- 



MOTIONS OF THE SATELLITES. 275 

ments. Granting, however, that they were mistaken, then 
is still the fact that the diameter of Venus is variously esti- 
mated ; and that a very small change in the data would 
make the fraction less instead of greater than that of the 
Earth. But admitting the discrepancy, we think that this 
correspondence, even as it now stands, is one of the strong- 
est confirmations of the Nebular Hypothesis.* 

Certain more special peculiarities of the satellites must 
be mentioned as suggestive. One of them is the relation 
between the period of revolution and that of rotation. 
No discoverable purpose is served by making the Moon go 
round its axis in the same time that it goes round the 
Earth : for our convenience, a more rapid axial motion 
would have been equally good ; and for any possible inhab- 
itants of the Moon, much better. Against the alternative 
supposition, that the equality occurred by accident, the 
probabilities are, as Laplace says, infinity to one. But to 
this arrangement, which is explicable neither as the result 
of design nor of chance, the Nebular Hypothesis furnishes 
a clue. In his " Exposition du Systeme du Monde," La- 
place shows, by reasoning too detailed to be here repeated, 
that under the circumstances such a relation of movements' 
would be likely to establish itself. 

Among Jupiter's satellites, which severally display these 
same synchronous movements, there also exists a still more 
remarkable relation. " If the mean angular velocity of the 
first satellite be 1 added to twice that of the third, the sum 
- %, 
* Since this essay was published, the data of the above calculations 
have been changed by the discovery that the Sun's distance is three mil- 
lions of miles less than was supposed. Hence results a diminution in his 
estimated mass, and in the masses of the planets (except the Earth and 
Moon). No revised estimate of the masses having yet been published, the 
table is re-printed in its original form. The diminution of the masses tc 
the alleged extent of about one-tenth, does not essentially alter the rela 
tions above pointed out. 



276 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 

will be equal to three times that of the second ; " and 
" from this it results that the situations of any two of them 
being given, that of the third can be found." Now here, aa 
before, no conceivable advantage results. Neither in this 
case can the connexion have been accidental : the probabil 
ities are infinity to one to the contraiw. But again, accord 
ing to Laplace, the Nebular Hypothesis supplies a solution. 
Are not these significant facts ? 

Most significant fact of all, however, is that presented 
by the rings of Saturn. As Laplace remarks, they are, as 
it were, still extant witnesses of the genetic process he 
propounded. Here we have, continuing permanently, 
forms of matter like those through which each planet and 
satellite once passed ; and their movements are just what, 
in conformity with the hypothesis, they should be. " La 
duree de la rotation d'une planete doit done eti-e, d'apres 
cette hypotbese, plus petite que la duree de la revolution 
du corps le plus voisin qui circule autour d'elle," says La- 
place.* And he then points out that the time of Saturn's 
rotation is to that of his rings as 427 to 438 — an amount 
of difference such as was to be expected. 

But besides the existence of these rings, and their 
movements in the required manner, there is a highly sug- 
gestive circumstance which Laplace has not remarked — 
namely, the place of their occurrence. If the Solar Sys 
tern was produced after the manner popularly supposed, 
then there is no reason why the rings of Saturn should not 
have encircled him at a comparatively great distance. Or, 
instead of being given to Saturn, who in their absence 
« T ould still have had eight satellites, such rings might have 
been given to Mars, by way of compensation for a moon. 
Or they might have been given to Uranus, who, for pur- 
poses of illumination, has far greater need of them. On 
the common hypothesis, we repeat, no reason can be as- 
* " Mecanique Celeste," p. 346. 



EXPLANATION OF SATTTKn's RINGS. 271 

signed for their existence in the place where we find them. 
But on the hypothesis of evolution, the arrangement, so far 
from offering a difficulty, offers another confirmation. 
These rings are found where alone they could have been 
produced — close to the body of a planet whose centrifu- 
gal force bears a great proportion to his gravitative force. 
That permanent rings should exist at any great distance 
from a planet's body, is, on the Nebular Hypothesis, mani- 
festly impossible. Rings detached early in the process of 
concentration, and therefore consisting of gaseous matter 
having extremely little power of cohesion, can have no 
ability to resist the disrupting forces due to imperfect bal- 
ance ; and must, therefore, collapse into satellites. A liquid 
ring is the only one admitting of permanence. But a liquid 
ring can be produced only when the aggregation is ap- 
proaching its extreme — only when gaseous matter is pass- 
ing into liquid, and the mass is about to assume the plane- 
tary form. And even then it cannot be produced save un- 
der special conditions. Gaining a rapidly-increasing pre- 
ponderance, as the gravitative force does during the closing 
stages of concentration, the centrifugal force cannot in or- 
dinary cases cause the detachment of rings when the mass 
has become dense. Only where the centrifugal force has 
all along been very great, and remains powerful to the last, 
as in Saturn, can liquid rings be formed. Thus the Nebu- 
lar Hypothesis shows us why such appendages surround 
Saturn, but exist nowhere else. 

And then, let us not forget the fact, discovered within 
these few yeai-s, that Saturn possesses a nebulous ring, 
through which his body is seen as through a thick veil. In 
a position where alone such a thing seems preservable — 
suspended, as it were, between the denser rings and the 
planet — there still continues one of these annular masses of 
diffused matter from which satellites and planets are be- 
lieved to have originated. 



278 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 

We find, then, that besides those most conspicuous pe« 
culiarities of the Solar System, which first suggested the 
theory of its evolution, there are many minor ones point- 
ing in the same direction. Were there no other evidence, 
these mechanical arrangements would, considered in their 
totality, go far to establish the Nebular Hypothesis. 

From the mechanical arrangements of the Solar Sys- 
tem, turn we now to its physical characters ; and, first, let 
us consider the inferences deducible from relative specific 
gravities. 

The fact that, speaking generally, the denser planets are 
the nearer to the Sun, is by some considered as adding 
another to the many indications of nebular origin. Legiti- 
mately assuming that the outermost parts of a rotating 
nebulous spheroid, in its earlier stages of concentration, 
will be comparatively rare ; and that the increasing density 
which the whole mass acquires as it contracts, must hold 
of the outermost parts as well as the rest ; it is argued 
that the rings successively detached will be more and more 
dense, and will form planets of higher and higher specific 
gravities. But passing over other objections, this explana- 
tion is quite inadequate to account for the facts. Using 
the Earth as a standard of comparison, the relative densi- 
ties run thus : — 

Neptune. Uranus. Saturn. Jupiter. Mars. Earth. Venus. Mercury. Sun. 
0-14 0-24 0-14 0-24 0-95 1-00 0-92 1-12 0'25 

Two seemingly insurmountable objections are presented 
by this series. The first is, that the progression is but a 
broken one. Neptune is as dense as Saturn, which, by the 
[lypothesis, it ought not to be. Uranus is as dense as Ju- 
piter, which it ought not to be. Uranus is denser than 
Saturn, and the Earth is denser than Yenus — facts which 
not only give no countenance to, but directly contradict, 
the alleged explanation. The second objection, still more 



DENSITIES OP THE PLANETS. 279 

manifestly fatal, is the low specific gravity of the Sun. If, 
when the matter of the Sun filled the orbit of Mercury, 
its state of aggregation was such that the detached ring 
formed a planet having a specific gravity equal to that of 
iron ; then the Sun itself, now that it has concentrated, 
should have a specific gravity much greater than that of 
iron ; whereas its specific gravity is not much above that 
of water. Instead of being far denser than the nearest 
planet, it is not one-fourth as dense. 

While these anomalies render untenable the position 
that the relative specific gravities of the planets are direct 
indications of nebular condensation ; it by no means fol- 
lows that they negative it. When all the factors are 
taken in account, there appears to be an interpretation 
consistent with the hypothesis of Laplace. 

Several causes may be assigned for the unlike specific 
gravities of the members of the Solar system : — 1. Differ- 
ences among them in respect of the elementary sub- 
stances composing them ; or in the proportions of such 
elementary substances, if they contain the same kinds. 2. 
Differences among them in respect of the quantities of 
matter they contain ; for, other things equal, the mutual 
gravitation of molecules will make a larger mass denser than 
a smaller. 3. Differences among their temperatures ; for, 
other things equal, those having higher temperatures will 
have lower specific gravities. 4. Differences among their 
structures in respect of the relative amounts of solid, liquid, 
and gaseous matters composing them. Of these conceivable 
causes, that commonly assigned is the first, more or less 
modified by the second. The extremely low specific gravity 
of Saturn, which but little exceeds that of cork, is supposed 
to arise from the intrinsic lightness of his substance : the 
tacit assumption being that the atmosphere of Saturn 
incloses a globe solid like our own, or otherwise, as 
Whewell supposes, liquid. That the Sun weighs not much 



280 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 

more than an equal bulk of water, is taken as evidence 
that the specific gravity of the matter he consists of, is but 
little greater than that of water ; although, considering 
his enormous gravitative force, which at his surface is 
twenty-eight times the gravitative force at the surface of 
the Earth, and considering the pressure which his immense 
mass (315,511 times that of the Earth), must exert upon 
his central parts ; the matter he is made of must, in such 
case, be widely unlike the matters we know. Neverthe- 
less, the current hypothesis is, that the Sun and planets 
are either solid or liquid, or have solid crusts with liquid 
nuclei : their unlike specific gravities resulting from un- 
likenesses of nature in their component materials.* 

But now ignoring teleological implications, and recog- 
nizing the truth disclosed by spectrum-analysis since the 
foregoing passage was originally written (the truth that 
the same elements exist in the Sun and in the Earth, 
and probably in the other planets, since even in the stars 
sundry of them have been identified) — recognizing thus 
the untenability of the assumption that the great dif- 
ferences between the specific gravities of the planets can 
be due to diversities among their component matters ; we 
are left with the alternative of supposing that these 
great differences result from differences in the conditions 
under which their component matters exist — differences 
specified under the heads 2, 3, and 4. Of these remaining 
possible causes, that numbered 2 we must at once reject ; 
for supposing the materials the same, and all other cir- 
cumstances the same, superiority in mass would involve 
greater density : Jupiter and Saturn would have higher 
specific gravities than the Earth and Venus, instead of 

* Excepting some alterations rendering its statements more specific, 
the above paragraph stands as it did when originally written five-and- 
twenty years ago. What follows is so far changed as to bring its argu- 
ments into harmony with discoveries since made. 



DENSITIES OP THE PLANETS. 281 

having far lower specific gravities. Thus, as tenable causes 
for these differences of specific gravity, we are restricted to 
differences of temperature, and differences in the pro- 
portions between solid, liquid, and gaseous matters ; 
which last, indeed, we may regard as accompanying 
differences of temperature. But these causes are just 
the causes inferable from the nebular hypothesis ; as we 
shall see on comparing the processes of concentration and 
cooling in large and small spheroids of nebulous matter. 

That large masses cool more slowly than small ones, is 
a truth illustrated at every fire-side by the rapid blackening 
of little cinders which fall into the ashes, in contrast 
with the long-continued redness of big lumps. There are 
several reasons for such contrasts. One is the relation 
between increase of surface and increase of content : 
surfaces, in similar bodies, increasing as the squares of 
the dimensions while contents increase as their cubes. 
Hence, contrasting the Earth and Jupiter, whose diameter 
is about eleven times that of the Earth, it results that 
while his surface is 121 times as great, his content is 
1331 times as great. Now even (supposing we begin with 
like temperatures and like densities) if the only effect was 
that through a given area of surface eleven times more 
matter had to be cooled in the one case than in the other, 
there would be a vast difference between the times occu- 
pied in concentration. But the difference would be much 
greater than that consequent on these geometrical re- 
lations. The escape of heat from a cooling mass is 
effected by conduction, or by convection, or by both. In 
a solid it is wholly by conduction ; in a liquid or gas the 
chief part is played by convection — by circulating currents 
which continually transpose the hotter and cooler parts. 
Now in fluid spheroids — gaseous, or liquid, or mixed — 
increasing size entails an increasing obstacle to cooling, 
because of the increasing distances to be travelled by the 



-JiOZ THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

circulating currents. Of course the relation is not a 
simple one : the velocities of the currents will doubtless 
be unlike. But it is manifest that in a sphere of eleven 
times the diameter, the transit of matter from centre to 
surface and back from surface to centre, will take a much 
longer time ; even if its movement is unrestrained. In a 
rotating spheroid, however, there come into play forces 
which restrain its movement in a degree augmenting 
with the velocity of rotation. In such a spheroid the 
respective portions of matter (supposing them equal in their 
angular velocities round the axis, which they will tend 
more and more to become as the density increases) must 
vary in their absolute velocities, according to their 
distances from the axis ; and each portion, having a 
momentum varying with its velocity, cannot have its 
distance from the axis changed by circulating currents, 
which it must be in greater or less degree, without loss or 
gain in its momentum : through the medium of fluid 
friction, force must be expended, now in increasing 
its motion and now in retarding its motion. Hence, 
when the larger spheroid has also a higher velocity of 
rotation — when, as in the case of Jupiter and the Earth, 
the angular velocity of the larger body is more than twice 
that of the smaller ; the relative slowness of the circula- 
ting currents, and the consequent retardation of cooling, 
must be much greater than is implied by the extra 
distances to be travelled. There are, however, certain 
factors which, working in an opposite way, qualify these 
effects. Other things equal, mutual gravitation among the 
parts of a large mass will cause a greater evolution of heat 
than is similarly caused in a small mass ; and the resulting 
difference of temperature, as well as the greater contrast 
between the temperatures of inner and outer parts in the 
larger mass than in the smaller, will tend to produce more 
rapid dissipation of heat. To this must be added the 



DENSITIES OP THE PLANETS. 283 

greater velocity of the circulating currents which the 
intenser forces at work in larger spheroids will produce — 
a contrast made still greater by the relatively smaller 
retardation by friction to which the more voluminous 
currents are exposed. In these causes we may recognize a 
possible explanation of the otherwise anomalous fact that 
the Sun, though having a thousand times the mass of 
Jupiter, has yet reached as advanced a stage of concentra- 
tion ; for the force of gravity in the Sun, which at his 
surface is some ten times that at the surface of Jupiter, 
must expose his central parts to a pressure relatively very 
intense ; producing during contraction a relatively rapid 
genesis of heat. And it is further to be remarked, that 
though the circulating currents in the Sun have far greater 
distances to travel, yet since his rotation is relatively so 
slow that the angular velocity of his substance is but 
about one-sixtieth of that of Jupiter's substance, the 
resulting obstacle to circulating currents is relatively 
small, and the escape of heat far less retarded. Here, 
too, we may note that in the co-operation of these factors, 
there seems "a reason for the greater concentration reached 
by Jupiter than by Saturn, though Saturn is the elder 
as well as the smaller of the two ; for at the same time 
that the gravitative force in Jupiter is much greater than 
that in Saturn, his velocity of rotation is less. 

But now, not judging more than roughly of the effects 
of these several factors, co-operating in various ways and 
degrees, some to aid concentration and others to resist it, 
it is sufficiently manifest that, other things equal, the 
larger nebulous spheroids, longer in losing their heat, will 
more slowly reach high specific gravities ; and that where 
the contrasts in size are so immense as those between the 
greater and the smaller planets, the smaller may have 
reached relatively high specific gravities when the greater 
have reached but relatively low ones. Further, it appears 



284 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

that such qualification of the process as results from the 
more rapid genesis of heat in the larger masses, will be 
countervailed where high velocity of rotation greatly im- 
pedes the circulating currents. Thus interpreted then, the 
various specific gravities of the planets do not conflict with 
the nebular hypothesis, but may be held to furnish further 
evidences of it. And now observe that the evidences thus 
furnished a priori, appear to be in course of verification 
a posteriori. In his work entitled Saturn and its System, 
Mr. Proctor has brought together proofs of sundry kinds 
that Jupiter and Saturn, having vaporous atmospheres of 
vast depths, subject to immense perturbations, have not 
reached any such stages of concentration and cooling as 
have been reached by the smaller planets. 

On pursuing further the above considerations, we 
reach certain conclusions respecting the internal constitu- 
tions of the planets, which suggest possible solutions of 
difficulties. In conformity with the teleological view 
above referred to, it has been taken for granted that each 
member of the Solar System is either solid or has a solid 
shell filled with molten matter : the Earth, supposed by 
some to have one of these structures and by some to 
have the other, being regarded as typical of the rest. 
Here, in the first place, it should be observed that neither 
of these is more than an hypothesis ; and we must not 
let the familiarity of either, or apparent probability of 
either, shut out the consideration of a third hypothesis 
if it should be physically possible. This third hypo- 
thesis is that the central part of every celestial body 
consists of gaseous matter — that the aeriform state which 
originally characterized the entire mass is permanently 
retained by its nucleus ; and that around this there has, 
during evolution, been formed a liquid shell, the outer 
surface of which has in some cases eventually solidified. 



INTERIOR STRUCTURES OF THE PLAKETS. 285 

" But what," it may be asked, " will become of this 
gaseous nucleus when exposed to the enormous gravita- 
tive pressure of a shell some thousands of miles thick ? 
How can aeriform matter withstand such a pressure ? " 
Very readily. It has been proved that, even when the 
heat generated by compression is allowed to escape, some 
gases remain uncondensible by any force we can produce. 
An unsuccessful attempt lately made at Vienna to liquify 
oxygen, clearly shows this enormous resistance. The steel 
piston employed was literally shortened by the pressure 
used ; and yet the gas remained unliquified ! If, then, the 
expansive force is thus immense when the heat evolved is 
dissipated, what must it be when that heat is in great 
measure detained, as in the case we are considering ? In- 
deed the experiences of M. Cagniard de Latour have 
shown that gases may, under pressure, acquire the density 
of liquids while retaining the aeriform state, provided the 
temperature continues extremely high. In such a case 
every addition to the heat is an addition to the repulsive 
power of the atoms : the increased pressure itself gener- 
ates an increased ability to resist ; and this remains true 
to whatever extent the compression is carried. Indeed it 
is a corollary from the pei'sistence of force, that if, under 
increasing pressure, a gas retains all the heat evolved, its 
resisting force is absolutely unlimited. Hence the internal 
planetary structure we have described is as physically 
stable a one as that commonly assumed.* 

And now, concluding that this hypothesis, not nega- 
tived by established scientific truths, may reasonably be 
discussed, let us consider what grounds there are for enter- 

* This paragraph stands just as it did when published in Tlie West- 
minster Revieiu for July, 1858, when the evidences it assigns were the 
best which could be given. In what follows I have utilized the results 
of more recent researches ; and especially those of Prof. Andrews con- 
cerning the " critical point " of gases. 



286 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 

taming it as probable. Let us consider what likelihood 
there is that a constitution of this kind would be assumed 
by a concentrating spheroid of nebulous matter. Through- 
out such a spheroid there will be convection-currents. 
Taking for granted that there are present several elements 
(conventionally so-called) which have possibly, or proba- 
bly, been formed during earlier stages of nebular concen- 
tration ; and bearing in mind that these elements in a 
gaseous state have different degrees of liquifiability, we 
may infer that there must come a time when the currents 
of mixed gases ascending from the hotter and denser in- 
terior will, on approaching the outside, arrive at a region 
in which, losing part of their heat by expansion, and a 
further part by radiation through the superjacent gases, 
they will begin to precipitate their more condensible com- 
ponents into vapour. That is to say, there will result an 
internal space filled with perfectly gaseous matters, a sur- 
rounding layer in which some of these hold in suspension 
others which have taken the form of cloud, and an outer- 
most layer consisting of the least condensible gases. 
Where there are sundry elements having different con- 
densation-points this structure is likely to become further 
involved. The cloudy layer will possibly — may we not 
say probably ? — become a compound one : certain of the 
more condensible elements passing into the vaporous form 
before they have reached the outer surface of it and form- 
ing an innermost cloudy layer of denser kind. If, now, 
we pursue in thought this process of concentration — if 
we recognize increasing mutual gi'avitation of the parts, 
increasing pressure of the outer layers upon the inner, 
increasing genesis and radiation of heat, along with more 
rapid convection -currents and an ever-thickening cloudy 
layer — we must infer that eventually the inner surface of 
this layer will arrive at what is known as " the critical 
point " of one of the elements, or of the mixture : a point 



INTERIOR STRUCTURES OF THE PLANETS. 287 

at which the specific gravities of the gaseous and liquid 
forms are the same. That is to say, there will arise an 
innermost stratum throughout which this element or mix- 
ture exists indifferently as gas or liquid — now with slight 
change of pressure or temperature assuming the liquid 
form, and now, with some counter change passing hack into 
the gaseous form. We may infer that such stratum will 
long remain in this indeterminate state. A liquid at 
or near the critical point, expands or contracts greatly 
as the conditions are altered ; so that there tends con- 
tinually to arise a mingling of portions having refractive 
powers suggesting a liquid form of aggregation with other 
portions having refractive powers suggesting a gaseous 
form. But we may reasonably conclude that eventually 
there will result a continuous liquid stratum. Though 
perpetually perturbed and broken by currents, this liquid 
stratum will perpetually restore itself. Of greater specific 
gravity than the vaporous strata above it ; of equal specific 
gravity with the contained gases immediately in contact 
with it ; and of less specific gravity than the deeper por- 
tions of the gaseous spheroid these form ; it will fulfil 
the conditions to mechanical stability. Once established 
it will thicken as fast as radiation of the planet's heat 
into space permits. Evidently the inner surface of this 
shell must maintain itself at the critical point ; since such 
cooling of all the outer structures as permits the tem- 
perature of this surface to fall, implies some contraction of 
these outer structures with accompanying approach to the 
common centre of gravity ; some increase of gravitative 
force involving higher pressure upon the contained gaseous 
spheroid, and consequently, some rise of temperature : diver- 
gence from the critical point either way will be instantly 
checked. And then observe, finally and chiefly, that the 
matter contained within this molten shell must retain 
permanently its gaseous form. For the law is that at a 



288 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

temperature above its critical point, a gas cannot by any 
amount of pressure be reduced to its correlative liquid ; 
and the temperature throughout this gaseous spheroid 
must everywhere be higher than at the surface, where 
loss of its heat is going on. Should it be objected to this 
argument that, at the critical temperature, a substance in 
its liquid state is more compressible than in its gaseous 
state, and that, consequently, the liquid when formed, 
acquiring a higher specific gravity, would sink towards the 
centre, and thus the distribution described would be un- 
stable ; the reply is, that though, were one element only 
concerned, this might be the case, there is reason to think 
it would not be the case if there were present the mingled 
gases of several elements, some of less specific gravity than 
others while more condensible. 

When in course of time this shell has become thick, 
the outer surface, ever radiating its heat into space, will 
fall very much below the inner in temperature. Chemical 
combination between the superjacent oxygen and the 
bases, metallic and other, forming the periphery of the 
molten layer, will take place ; and with a further lapse of 
time and fall of temperature, solidified portions will float 
upon its surface as do the scoriae on a lava stream. That 
is to say, the solidification of the outside of the molten 
shell, will be analogous to the preceding liquifaction of 
the outside of the gaseous nucleus. 

I am aware that this hypothesis is incongruous with 
conclusions drawn by certain distinguished physicists. 
Sir "William Thomson originally indorsed the inference 
of Mr. Hopkins, that the Earth's crust must be at least 
800 miles thick ; but now thinks this inference invalid. 
He has contended, too, that a solid crust upon a molten 
globe could not sustain itself, since, when fissured, its 
fragments would sink ; but this argument is met by the 
allegation that iron, copper, brass, whinstone and granite, 



INTERIOR STRUCTURES OE THE PLANETS. 2S9 

are less dense when solid than when liquid, and unquestion- 
ably bismuth is so.* But Sir William Thomson still holds 
it certain that the substance of the Earth is extremely- 
rigid. He contends that were it otherwise, the tidal wave 
produced in its substance would cause rises and falls of 
the outer surface, corresponding with those formed in the 
ocean ; and that there would consequently be no visible 
tide. Hence he infers that the Earth, though once molten, 
is now solid all through ; and that its remaining heat is 
escaping by conduction only. In his elaborate work on 
the Physics of the EartKs Crust, the Rev. O. Fisher argues 
that the hypothesis of solidity fails to account for the ge- 
ological facts. He also calculates that the contraction in 
that case resulting from loss of heat, would cause corru- 
gations of the surface not approaching in amount to those 
which actually exist : assuming the existence of a liquid 
substratum, the inference he draws from observed tempera- 
ture beneath the Alps, being that the solid crust is about 25 

* Even could no such demurrer be entered, it might be contended 
that Sir William Thomson's conclusion is invalid. In this, as in other 
cases, he has inferred positive results from questionable data. The in- 
ference that the crust, breaking into fragments, would sink into the 
subjacent molten matter, assumes that the two are homogeneous in 
composition. The assumption is not simply gratuitous ; it is extremely 
improbable. Most likely before any solids were formed, there would 
have arisen some such segregation of the molten elements as brought 
to the surface a larger proportion of the lighter ones — silicon, alumin- 
ium, calcium, sodium, etc. But even without supposing this, it is mani- 
fest that oxides of these elements, stable at high temperature, would be 
formed at the surface of contact between the molten matter and the 
superjacent atmosphere, largely charged with oxygen; and that, being 
lighter and less fusible than the elements themselves, they would float 
upon its surface in virtue of their absolutely smaller specific gravity, ir- 
respective of their state of aggregation. The fact that the Earth's crust, 
mainly composed of these oxides, has a specific gravity 2, in contrast with 
the average specific gravity of the Earth, which is more than 5, harmo- 
nizes with this conclusion. 



290 . THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 

miles thick. But now, returning to the difficulty raised by 
Sir William Thomson, there arises the question — What 
modification results if, instead of a globe consisting wholly 
of molten matter inclosed in a solid crust, we suppose this 
crust to be the cooled and solidified covering of a molten 
shell (perhaps of no great thickness) containing matter 
which, though as dense as this shell at their surface of 
contact and increasing in density towards its centre, main- 
tains its gaseous form, and instead of being relatively in- 
elastic and viscous is highly elastic and mobile ? What 
would be the character of the tidal wave in a relatively 
thin shell, thus supported by a gaseous nucleus which 
resisted with great promptness its deformation ? What 
would be the character of the tidal wave in the gaseous 
nucleus itself? And then, further, what would be the 
respective retardations of the tidal wave in the gaseous 
nucleus, in the viscous molten shell, and in the superjacent 
water ? May we not infer that the positions in longitude 
of the waves in the nucleus, and in the shell, would 
differ so widely as partially to cancel one another, and 
thus leave the wave in the water partially uncancelled ? 
An additional reason for asking whether the tidal phenom- 
ena may not thus be rendered accountable, may be given. 
The hypothesis of entire solidity which Mr. Fisher gives 
reasons for rejecting as untenable, and the hypothesis 
which he himself thinks necessitated, that the matter 
contained within the Earth's crust is molten near its 
surface but, by Sir W. Thomson's argument, solid 
towards its centre, both assume central solidity on 
the strength of the fact that solids subject to pres- 
sure have higher melting points than when free ; and 
that therefore, conversely, liquids may be solidified by 
pressure. But is not solidification by pressure dependent 
on escape of the contained heat? Will it be alleged that 
a quantity of metal in a molten state can by any pressure 



INTERIOR STRUCTURES OP THE PLANETS. 291 

be reduced to a solid state, if none of its heat is suffered to 
escape ? Unless this be alleged, it must be admitted that 
the matter of a molten globe could not solidify at the 
centre, where increase of pressure generated its correlative 
increase of temperature. Contrariwise it may be reason- 
ably inferred that just as when raised to its critical point 
of temperature, a gas cannot be reduced to the liquid form 
by any amount of pressure ; so, when a liquid retains all 
that heat which made it liquid, no amount of pressure will 
solidify it. But, of course, if the foregoing reasoning is 
accepted, which implies that liquifaction did not begin at 
the centre but near the surface, the hypothesis of solidifi- 
cation at the centre is excluded. 

Indirect evidence supporting the general view above set 
forth, is furnished by the asteroids or planetoids. The 
hypothesis of Olbers, propounded when only four of them 
were known, that they are fragments of an exploded planet 
which once occupied the region they fill, is generally held 
less probable than that of Laplace, that they were formed 
from a nebulous ring which separated into several parts 
instead of collapsing into a single mass. But this latter 
hypothesis, which looked tenable at the time when only 
four planetoids had been discovered, does not look so 
tenable now that the number discovered reaches 230 : the 
implication being, moreover, that other hundreds remain to 
be discovered. Against this hypothesis it may be urged 
that did a nebulous ring break up into numerous small 
portions, revolving round the Sun with approximately equal 
velocities, the annular series of them would inevitably 
have some point of least attraction between its adjacent 
members at which parting would take place, followed by 
collapse of its members upon one another till a single body 
was formed. Moreover, their mean distances from the Sun 
could scarcely differ so much that some are twice others : 
it could hardly happen that the annular space included 



5jy2 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 

between their most unlike mean distances would be more 
than 100 millions of miles across, and that the space occu- 
pied by their widest excursions would be 270 millions of 
miles across. Again, the parts of such a ring could not 
well have orbits much inclined to one another, or much 
inclined to the average plane of the solar system, as are 
sundry of these planetoid orbits. Further, their orbits 
could not differ greatly in eccentricity as they do — one, if 
not more of them, to the extent of cutting the orbit of 
Mars. Surely no portion of an outer nebulous ring could 
thus intrude upon the region of an inner nebulous ring, at 
the same time that other portions almost intruded upon the 
region of a remoter nebulous ring. Once more, there 
could not arise any considerable differences between the 
times in which the discrete portions of such a ring 
revolved round the sun ; to the extent of some being 
thrice' others. But all these traits of the planetoids, 
incongruous with the supposition of Laplace, are congruous 
with that of Olbers ; and are, indeed, necessitated by it. 
Fragments propelled in all directions by an explosion, 
multitudinous in number and various in size, would inevit- 
ably acquire orbits differing greatly in their periodic times, 
their inclinations, and their eccentricities. The inference 
drawn from the present derangement of their orbits, 
that if the planetoids once formed parts of one mass, 
it must have exploded myriads of years ago, is no diffi- 
culty. Moreover, we have at the same time an adequate 
cause for meteors, whether solitary or in periodic swarms ; 
since, along with the larger fragments there would be shot 
into space immeasurably greater numbers of smaller frag- 
ments, themselves of all sizes, some in groups approximately 
the same in direction and velocity, and others singly — 
fragments, the physical characters of which would bear 
testimony to their having once belonged to some great 



INTEEIOR STRUCTURES OF THE PLANETS. 293 

mass where active physical and chemical processes had 
been going on.* 

* While these revised pages are standing in type, it has occurred to 
me that evidence for or against the hypothesis of Olbers ought to be fur- 
nished by the assemblage of planetoids considered in respect of their 
sizes and distribution. If they resulted from the bursting of a planet 
once revolving in the region they occupy, the implications are : — first, 
that the fragments must be most abundant in the space immediately 
about the original orbit, and less abundant far away from it ; second, 
that the large fragments must be relatively few, while of smaller frag- 
ments the numbers will increase as the sizes decrease ; thhd, that as some 
among the smaller fragments will be propelled further than any of the 
larger, the widest deviations in mean distance from the mean distance of 
the original planet, will be presented by the smallest members of the 
assemblage ; and fourth, that the orbits differing most from the rest in 
eccentricity and in inclination will be among those of these smallest 
members. With a view to verification, I first referred to a recent gen- 
eral account of the planetoids in the Annuaire de V Observatoire Royal 
de Bruzellcs, 1881, 48 e . Annie. Comparison of the extremes tended to 
show that some such relations exist. Taking the distance from the Earth 
to the Sun as 1, there is a region lying between 2 - 55 and 2 - 8 where the 
planetoids are found in maximum abundance. The mean distance be- 
tween these extremes, 2 - 66, does not greatly differ from the average of 
the distances of the four largest planetoids, 2 - 64. May we not say that 
the thick clustering of these bodies about this distance (which is, how- 
ever, rather less than that assigned for the planet by Bode's empirical 
law) in contrast with the wide scattering of the few whose distances are 
little more than 2, or exceed 3, is a fact answering to anticipation? 
Again, among those having measured sizes, we may note that the orbits 
of the two largest, Vesta and Ceres, having diameters respectively of 
420 and 338 kilometres, have eccentricities falling between "05 and - 1 ; 
while the orbits of the two smallest, Menippe and Eva, 19 and 22 kilo- 
metres in diameter respectively, have eccentricities falling between - 25 
and - 3, and between '3 and '35. And then among those more recently 
discovered, having diameters so small that they have not yet been meas- 
ured, come the extremely erratic ones — Hilda, which with a mean dis- 
tance of nearly 4 approaches the orbit of Jupiter, iEthra, having an orbit 
so eccentric that it cuts the orbit of Mars, and Medusa, which comes 
nearest to the Sun. Systematic comparisons yield results only approxi- 
mately correct, because the numerous planetoids remaining to be dis- 



294 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

Taking Olbers' supposition, then, as the most tenable 
one, let us ask how such an explosion could have occurred. 

covered, will greatly increase those groups which now include the small- 
est ; for, of the added members the average magnitude is each year less. 
Allowing for this, we find evidence to the point. Analysis of the tables 
at the end of Chambers's Descriptive Astronomy, shows that there is 
only one planetoid between the sixth and seventh star-magnitudes. Be- 
tween the seventh and eighth star-magnitudes there is also but one. Be- 
tween the eighth and ninth there are six. Between the ninth and tenth 
there are sixteen. Between the tenth and eleventh there are thirty-six. 
Of smaller magnitudes than the eleventh there are sixty-one specified ; 
and the forty odd more recently discovered, having unspecified star-mag- 
nitudes, are presumably among these smallest. To which must be added 
the sixty more that have been found since the date of the table. Thus 
it is clear that with decrease in the sizes of these bodies, there goes in- 
crease in their numbers. Kindred evidence is furnished if we broadly 
contrast their mean distances. Out of the 14 largest planetoids having 
star-magnitudes falling between 6"5 and 9 - 5 there is not one having a 
mean distance that exceeds 3. Of those having magnitudes between 9 - 5 
and 10 there are 10 ; and of these but one has a mean distance greater 
than 3. Of those between 10 and 10 - 5 there are sixteen; and of these 
also there is but one exceeding 3 in mean distance. The group of next 
smallest in magnitude contains 20, and of these 5 have this great mean 
distance. In the next group there are 22, and of these 9 have this 
great mean distance. The next group, 27, contains 5 such ; the next, 9, 
contains 2 such ; the next, 7, contains 2 such ; and the single plan- 
etoid forming the next group has itself this great mean distance. Hence 
the ratios to their respective groups of those having this great mean 
distance run thus:— 0'0, O'l, 0-06, 0'25, 0"4, 0-19, 0*22, 0*29, TO. "Were 
there to be added the 100 additional ones, this progression might not 
improbably become more regular — a conclusion supported by the fact 
that out of the last 9 included at the end of the table in Newcomb's 
Popular Astronomy, which have not their elements given by Chambers, 
there are 4 having this great mean distance. If the average eccentricities 
of the orbits of the planetoids grouped according to their decreasing sizes 
are compared, no very definite results are disclosed, excepting this, that 
Polyhymnia, Eurydice, Atalanta, and iEthra, which have the greatest ec- 
centricities (falling between - S and *38) are all among those of smallest 
star-magnitudes. Nor when we consider the inclinations of the orbits do 
we meet with obvious verification ; since the proportion of highly-inclined 



INTERIOR STRUCTURES OF THE PLANETS. 295 

If planets are internally constituted as is commonly 
assumed, no conceivable cause for it can be named. A 
solid mass may crack and fall to pieces, but it cannot 
violently explode. So, too, with a liquid mass covered by 
a crust. Though, if contained in an unyielding shell and 
artificially raised to a very high temperature, a liquid 
might burst tbe shell and simultaneously flash into vapour, 
yet, if contained in a yielding crust, like that of a planet, 
it would not do so. But the planetary structure above 
supposed, supplies the requisite conditions to an explosion, 
and an adequate cause for it. We have in the interior of 
the mass, a cavity serving as a sufficient reservoir of force. 
We have this cavity filled with gaseous matters of high 
tension. We have in the chemical affinities of these 
matters a source of enormous expansive power capable of 
being suddenly liberated. And we have in the increasing 
heat consequent on progressing concentration, a cause of 
such instantaneous chemical change and the resulting 
catastrophe. Thus, as yielding a conceivable origin for 
these innumerable erratic bodies, varying in their sizes 
from those of small planets down to those of fragments an 

orbits among the smaller planetoids, does not appear to be greater than 
among the others. But consideration shows that there are two ways in 
which these last comparisons are vitiated. One is, that the inclinations 
are measured from the plane of the ecliptic instead of being measured 
from the plane of the orbit of the hypothetical planet. The other, and 
more important one, is, that the search for planetoids has naturally 
been carried on in that comparatively narrow zone within which most 
of their orbits fall ; and that, consequently, those having the most highly- 
inclined orbits are the least likely to have been detected : especially if 
they are at the same time among the smallest. Moreover, considering 
the general relation between the inclinations of planetoid orbits and 
their eccentricities, it is probable that among the orbits of these unde- 
tected planetoids are many of the most eccentric. But while recognizing 
the incompleteness of the evidence, it seems to me that it goes far to 
justify the hypothesis of Olbers, and is quite incongruous with that of 
Laplace. 



296 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

ounce or two in weight, which, though members of the 
Solar System, differ so greatly from the rest in their 
behaviour, while also differing mnltitudinously among 
themselves, the hypothesis gains indirect support. 

In the preceding sections a good deal has been said, 
directly or by implication, concerning the heat resulting 
from the concentration of nebulous matter into planets. 
But quite apart from the speculations set forth in them, 
there is to be noted the fact that in the present con- 
ditions of celestial bodies at large, with respect to tem- 
perature, we find additional materials for building up 
the argument ; and these, too, of the most substantial 
character. 

Heat must inevitably be generated by the aggregation 
of diffused matter into a concrete form ; and throughout 
our reasonings we have assumed that such generation of 
heat has been an accompaniment of nebular condensation. 
If, then, the Nebular Hypothesis be true, we ought to find 
in all the heavenly bodies, either present high tempera- 
tures or marks of past high temperatures. 

As far as observation can reach, the facts prove to be 
what theory requires. Various evidences conspire to show 
that, below a certain depth, the Earth is still molten. And 
that it was once wholly molten, is implied by the circum- 
stance that the rate at which the temperature increases on 
descending below its surface, is such as would be found in 
a mass that had been cooling for an indefinite period. 
The Moon, too, shows us, by its corrugations and its con- 
spicuous volcanoes, that in it there has been a process of 
refrigeration and contraction, like that which has gone 
on in the Earth. And in Venus, the existence of moun- 
tains similarly indicates the shrinking of a solidifying 
crust, or an igneous reaction of the interior upon it, or 
both. 



MOLTEN INTERIOR OF THE EARTH. 297 

On the common theory of creation, these phenomena 
are inexplicable. To what end the Earth should once have 
existed in a molten state, incapable of supporting life, it 
cannot say. To satisfy this supposition, the Earth should 
have been originally created in a state fit for the assumed 
purposes of creation ; and similarly with the other planets 
While, therefore, to the Nebular Hypothesis the evidence 
of original incandescence and still continued internal heat, 
furnish strong confirmation, they are, to the antagonist hy- 
pothesis, insurmountable difficulties. 

But the argument from temperature does not end here. 
There remains to be noticed a more conspicuous and still 
more significant fact. If the Solar System was formed by 
the concentration of diffused matter, which evolved heat 
while gravitating into its present dense form ; then there 
are certain obvious corollaries respecting the relative tem- 
peratures of the resulting bodies. Other things equal, the 
latest-formed mass will be the latest in cooling — will, for an 
almost infinite time, possess a greater heat than the earlier- 
formed ones. Other things equal, the largest mass will, be- 
cause of its superior aggregative force, become hotter th^d 
the others, and radiate more intensely. Other things 
equal, the largest mass, notwithstanding the higher tempe- 
rature it reaches, will, in consequence of its relatively small 
surface, be the slowest in losing its evolved heat. And 
hence, if there is one mass which was not only formed after 
the rest, but exceeds them enormously in size, it follows 
that this one will reach an intensity of incandescence much 
beyond that reached by the rest ; and .will continue in a 
state of intense incandescence long after the rest have 
cooled. 

Such a mass we have in the Sun. It is a corollary from 
the Nebular Hypothesis, that the matter forming the Sun 
assumed its present concrete form, at a period much more 
recent than that at which the planets became definite bo" 



29 S THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

dies. The quantity of matter contained in the Sun is nearly 
five million times that contained in the smallest planet, and 
above a thousand times that contained in the largest. And 
while, from the enormous gravitative force of the atoms, 
the evolution of heat has been intense, the facilities of ra- 
diation have been relatively small. Hence the still-contin- 
ued high temperature. Just that condition of the central 
body which is a necessary inference from the Nebular Hy- 
pothesis, we find actually existing in the Sun. 

It may be "well to consider a little more closely, what is 
the probable condition of the Sun's surface. Round the 
globe of incandescent molten substances, thus conceived to 
form the visible body of the Sun, there is known to exist a 
voluminous atmosphere : the inferior brilliancy of the Sun's 
border, and the appearances during a total eclipse, alike 
show this.* What now must be the constitution of this at- 
mosphere ? At a temperature approaching a thousand 
times that of molten iron, which is the calculated tempera- 
ture of the solar surface, very many, if not all, of the sub- 
stances we know as solid, would become gaseous ; and 
though the Sun's enormous attractive force must be a pow- 
erful check on this tendency to assume the form of vapour, 
yet it cannot be questioned that if the body of the Sun 
consists of molten substances, some of them must be con- 
stantly undergoing evaporation. That the dense gases 
thus continually being generated will form the entire mass of 
the solar atmosphere, is not probable. If anything is to be 
inferred, either from the Nebular Hypothesis, or from the 
analogies supplied by the planets, it must be concluded 
that the outermost part of the solar atmosphere consists of 
what are called permanent gases — gases that are not con- 
densible into fluid even at low temperatures. If we con- 
sider what must have been the state of things here, when 
the surface of the Earth was molten, we shall see that 
* See Herschel's "Outlines of Astronomy." 



REVELATIONS OF SPECTRUM-ANALYSIS. 299 

round the still molten surface of the Sun, there probably 
exists a stratum of dense aeriform matter, made up of sub- 
limed metals and metallic compounds, and above this a 
stratum of comparatively rare medium analogous to air. 
What now will happen with these two strata ? Did they 
both consist of permanent gases, they could not remain 
separate : according to a well-known law, they would 
eventually form a homogeneous mixture. But this will by 
no means happen when the lower stratum consists of mat- 
ters that are gaseous only at excessively high temperatures. 
Given off from a molten surface, ascending, expanding, and 
cooling, these will presently reach a limit of elevation 
above which they cannot exist as vapour, but must con- 
dense and precipitate. Meanwhile the upper stratum, ha- 
bitually charged with its quantum of these denser matters, 
as our air with its quantum of water, and ready to deposit 
them on any depression of temperature, must be habitually 
unable to take up any more of the lower stratum ; and 
therefore this lower stratum will remain quite distinct from 
it. 

Since the foregoing paragraph was originally published, 
in 1858, the proposition it enunciates as a corollary from 
the Nebular Hypothesis, has been in great part verified. 
The marvellous disclosures made by spectrum-analysis, 
have proved beyond the possibility of doubt, that the solar 
atmosphere contains, in a gaseous state, the metals, iron, 
calcium, magnesium, sodium, chromium, and nickel, along 
with small quantities of barium, copper, and zinc. That 
there exist in the solar atmosphere other metals like those 
which we have on the Earth, is probable ; and that it con- 
tains elements which are unknown to us, is very possible. 

Be this as it may, however, the proposition that the 
Sun's atmosphere consists largely of metallic vapours, must, 
take rank as an established truth ; and that the incandes- 
cent body of the Sun consists of molten metals, follows al 



300 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 

most of necessity. That an d priori inference which prob- 
ably seemed to many readers wildly speculative, should be 
thus conclusively justified by observations, made without 
reference to any theory, is a striking fact ; and it gives yet 
further support to the hypothesis from which this d priori 
conclusion was drawn. It may be well to add that Kirch 
hoff, to whom we owe this discovery respecting the consti- 
tution of the solar atmosphere, himself remarks in his me- 
moir of 1861, that the facts disclosed are in harmony with 
the Nebular Hypothesis. 

And here let us not omit to note also, the significant 
bearing which Kirchhoff's results have on the doctrine con- 
tended for in a foregoing section. Leaving out the barium, 
copper, and zinc, of which the quantities are inferred to be 
small, the metals existing as vapours in the Sun's atmo- 
sphere, and by consequence as molten in his incandescent 
body, have an average specific gravity of 4 - 25. But the 
average specific gravity of the Sun is about 1. How is 
this discrej)ancy to be explained ? To say that the Sun 
consists almost wholly of the three lighter metals named, 
would be quite unwarranted by the evidence : the results 
of spectrum-analysis would just as much warrant the asser- 
tion that the Sun consists almost wholly of the three heav- 
ier. Three metals (two of them heavy) having been al- 
ready left out of the estimate because their quantities ap- 
pear to be small, the only legitimate assumption on which 
to base an estimate of specific gravity, is that the rest are 
present in something like equal amounts. Is it then that 
the lighter metals exist in larger proportions in the molten 
mass, though not in the atmosphere ? This is very un- 
likely : the known habitudes of matter rather imply that 
the reverse is the case. Is it then that under the condi- 
tions of temperature and gravitation existing in the Sun, 
the state of liquid aggregation is wholly unlike that exist- 
ing here ? This is a very strong assumption : it is one for 



PBOBABLE CONSTITUTION OF THE SUN. 301 

which our terrestrial experiences afford no adequate war 
rant ; and if such unlikeness exists, it is very improbable 
that it should produce so immense a contrast in specific 
gravity as that of 4 to 1. The more legitimate conclusion 
is that the Sun's body is not made up of molten matter all 
through ; but that it consists of a molten shell with a 
gaseous nucleus. And this we have seen to be a corollary 
from the Nebular Hypothesis. 

Considered in their ensemble, the several groups of evi- 
dences assigned amount almost to proof. We have seen 
that, when critically examined, the speculations of late 
years current respecting the nature of the nebulae, commit 
their promulgators to sundry absurdities ; while, on the 
other hand, we see that the various appearances these neb- 
ulas present, are explicable as different stages in the precip- 
itation and aggregation of diffused matter. We find that 
comets, alike by their physical constitution, their immense- 
ly-elongated and variously-directed orbits, the distribution 
of those orbits, and their manifest structural relation to 
the Solar System, bear testimony to the past existence of 
that system in a nebulous form. Not only do those obvious 
peculiarities in the motions of the planets which first sug- 
gested the Nebular Hypothesis, supply proofs of it, but on 
closer examination we discover, in the slightly-diverging 
inclinations of their orbits, in their various rates of rotation, 
and their differently-directed axes of rotation, that the 
planets yield us yet further testimony ; while the satellites, 
by sundry traits, and especially by their occurrence in 
greater or less abundance where the hypothesis implies 
greater or less abundance, confirm this testimony. By 
tracing out the process of planetary condensation, we are 
led to conclusions respecting the internal structure of plan- 
ets which at once explain their anomalous specific gravities, 
and at the same time reconcile various seemingly contra- 



302 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 

dictory facts. Once more, it turns out that what is d priori 
inferable from the Nebular Hypothesis respecting the tem- 
peratures of the resulting bodies, is just what observation 
establishes ; and that both the absolute and the relative 
temperatures of the Sun and planets are thus accounted 
for. When we contemplate these various evidences in 
their totality — when we observe that, by the Nebular Hy- 
pothesis, the leading phenomena of the Solar System, and 
the heavens in general, are explicable ; and when, on the 
other hand, we consider that the current cosmogony is not 
only without a single fact to stand on, but is at variance 
with all our positive knowledge of Nature ; we see that the 
proof becomes overwhelming. 

It remains only to point out that while the genesis of 
the Solar System, and of countless other systems like it, is 
thus rendered comprehensible, the ultimate mystery con- 
tinues as great as ever. The problem of existence is not 
solved : it is simply removed further back. The Nebular 
Hypothesis throws no light on the origin of diffused mat- 
ter ; and diffused matter as much needs accounting for as 
concrete matter. The genesis of an atom is not easier to 
conceive than the genesis of a planet. Nay, indeed, so far 
from making the Universe a less mystery than before, it 
makes it a greater mystery. Creation by manufacture is a 
much lower thing than creation by evolution. A man can 
put together a machine ; but he cannot make a machine 
develop itself. The ingenious artizan, able as some have 
been, so far to imitate vitality as to produce a mechanical 
pianoforte-player, may in some sort conceive how, by 
greater skill, a complete man might be artificially pro- 
duced ; but he is unable to conceive how such a complex 
organism gradually arises out of a minute structureless 
germ. That our harmonious universe once existed j^oten- 
tially as formless diffused matter, and has slowly grown 
into its present organized state, is a far more astonishing 



THE ULTIMATE MYSTERY STILL UNSOLVED. 303 

fact than would have been its formation after the artificial 
method vulgarly supposed. Those who hold it legitimate 
to argue from phenomena to noumena, may rightly con- 
tend that the Nebular Hypothesis implies a First Cause 
as much transcending " the mechanical God of Paley," as 
this does the fetish of the savage. 

Note. — The argument on page 251, omits a factor which is of greater 
importance than that assigned. A concentrating nebula will necessarily 
have a central region which is denser than its peripheral regions. Mani- 
festly, any flocculus moving towards this central region, will have its course 
affected not only by the unequal reactions of the medium on its unsym- 
metrically disposed parts, but also by differences of pressure consequent 
on inequalities of density of the medium on its two sides, especially near 
the nucleus : unless its line of movement is directly towards the centre 
of mass, against which the chances are infinity to one, it must be made 
to diverge. Hence, such motion as it has acquired, directed not towards 
the common centre of gravity but towards one side of it, will be changed 
into a motion of revolution round that centre. And since the momenta 
of the flocculi thus drawn in from various directions on different sides, 
are cei'tain not to cancel one another completely, the outstanding effect 
in some one direction will become a general motion of rotation. 

Here, as a not unnatural sequence, I am led to point out the inva- 
lidity of the reason assigned by Mons. Babinet for rejection of the Nebu- 
lar Hypothesis. He has calculated that taking the existing Sun, with 
its observed angular velocity, its substance, if expanded so as to fill the 
orbit of Neptune, would have nothing approaching the angular velocity 
which the time of revolution of that planet implies. The assumption he 
makes is inadmissible. He supposes that all parts of the nebulous 
spheroid when it filled Neptune's orbit, had the same angular velocity. 
But the process of nebular condensation as indicated on page 251 and 
above, implies that the remoter flocculi of nebulous matter, later in 
reaching the central mass, and forming its peripheral portions, will ac- 
quire during their longer journeys towards it greater velocities. An in- 
spection of one of the spiral nebulae, as 51st or 99th Messier, at once 
shows that the outlying portions when they reach the nucleus, will form 
an equatorial belt moving round the common centre more rapidly than 
the rest. Thus the central parts will have small angular velocities, while 
there will be increasing angular velocities of parts increasingly remote 
from the centre. And while the density of the spheroid continues small, 
fluid friction will scarcely at all change these differences. 



VII. 
BAIN ON THE EMOTIONS AND THE WILL; 



AFTER the controversy between the Neptunists and 
the Vulcanists had been long carried on without defi- 
nite results, there came a reaction against all speculative 
geology. Reasoning without adequate data having led to 
nothing, inquirers went into the opposite extreme, and con- 
fining themselves wholly to collecting data, relinquished 
reasoning. The Geological Society of London was formed 
with the express object of accumulating evidence ; for many 
years hypotheses were forbidden at its meetings ; and only 
of late have attempts to organize the mass of observations 
into consistent theory been tolerated. 

This reaction and subsequent re-reaction, well illustrate 
the recent history of English thought in general. The 
time was when our countrymen speculated, certainly to as 
great an extent as any other people, on all those high ques- 
tions which present themselves to the human intellect; 
and, indeed, a glance at the systems of philosophy that are 
or have been current on the Continent, suflices to show how 
much other nations owe to the discoveries of our ances- 
tors. For a generation or two, however, these more ab- 
stract subjects have fallen into neglect ; and, among those 
svho plume themselves on being " practical," even into con 



PRESENT TENDENCIES OF INQUIRY. 305 

tempt. Partly, perhaps, a natural accompaniment of our 
rapid material growth, this intellectual phase has been in 
great measure due to the exhaustion of argument, and the 
necessity for better data. Not so much with a conscious 
recognition of the end to be subserved, as from an uncon- 
scious subordination to that rhythm traceable in social 
changes as in other things, an era of theorizing without 
observing, has been followed by an era of observing with- 
out theorizing. During the long-continued devotion to 
concrete science, an immense quantity of raw material for 
abstract science has been accumulated ; and now there is 
obviously commencing a period in which this accumulated 
raw material will be organized into consistent theory. On 
all sides — equally in the inorganic sciences, hi the science 
of life, and in the science of society — may we note the ten- 
dency to pass from the superficial and empirical to the more 
profound and rational. 

In Psychology this change is conspicuous. The facts 
brought to light by anatomists and physiologists during the 
last fifty years, are at length being used towards the inter- 
pretation of this highest class of biological phenomena ; and 
already there is promise of a great advance. The work of 
Mr. Alexander Bain, of which the second volume has been 
recently issued, may be regarded as especially characteris- 
tic of the transition. It gives us in orderly arrangement, 
the great mass of evidence supplied by modern science 
towards the building-up of a coherent system of mental 
philosophy. It is not in itself a system of mental philoso- 
phy, properly so called ; but a classified collection of mate- 
rials for such a system, presented with that method and in- 
sight which scientific discipline generates, and accompanied 
with occasional passages of an analytical character. It is 
indeed that which it in the main professes to be — a natural 
history of the mind. 

Were we to say that the researches of the naturalist 



306 BAIN ON THE EMOTIONS AND THE WILL 

who collects and dissects and describes species, bear tie 
same relation to the researches of the comparative anato- 
mist tracing out the laws of organization, which Mr. Bain's 
labours bear to the labours of the abstract psychologist, 
we should be going somewhat too far ; for Mr. Bain's work 
is not wholly descriptive. Still, however, such an analogy 
conveys the best general conception of what, he has done ; 
and serves most clearly to indicate its needfulness. For 
as, before there can be made anything like true generaliza- 
tions respecting the classification of organisms and the laws 
of organization, there must be an extensive accumulation 
of the facts presented in numerous organic bodies; so, 
without a tolerably-complete delineation of mental phenom- 
ena of all orders, there can scarcely arise auy adequate the- 
ory of the mind. Until recently, mental science has been 
pursued much as physical science was pursued by the an- 
cients : not by drawing conclusions from observations and 
experiments, but by drawing them from arbitrary a priori 
assumptions. This course, long since abandoned in the one 
case with immense advantage, is gradually being abandoned 
in the other ; and the treatment of Psychology as a division 
of natural history, shows that the abandonment will soon be 
complete. 

Estimated as a means to higher results, Mr. Bain's work 
is of great value. Of its kind it is the most scientific in 
conception, the most catholic in spirit, and the most com- 
plete in execution. Besides delineating the various classes 
of mental phenomena as seen under that stronger light 
thrown on them by modern science, it includes in the pic- 
ture much which previous writers had omitted — partly 
from prejudice, partly from ignorance. We refer more 
especially to the participation of bodily organs in mental 
changes ; and the addition to the primary mental changes, 
of those many secondary ones which the actions of the 
bodily organs generate. Mr. Bain has, we believe, been 



HIS WOEK ESSENTIALLY TKANSITTONAL. 307 

the first to appreciate the importance of this element in oui 
states of consciousness ; and it is one of his merits that he 
shows how constant and large an element *t is. Further, 
the relations of voluntary and involuntary movements are 
elucidated in a way that was not possible to writers unac 
quainted with the modern doctrine of reflex action. And 
beyond this, some of the analytical passages that here and 
there occur, contain important ideas. 

Valuable, however, as is Mr. Bain's work, we regard 
it as essentially transitional. It presents in a digested 
form the results of a period of observation ; adds to these 
results many well-delineated facts collected by himself; 
arranges new and old materials with that more scientific 
method which the discipline of our times has fostered ; 
and so prepare the way for better generalizations. But 
almost of necessity its classifications and conclusions are 
provisional. In the growth of each science, not only is 
correct observation needful for the formation of true the- 
ory; but true theory is needful as a preliminary to cor- 
rect observation. Of course we do not intend this as- 
sertion to be taken literally ; but as a strong expression of 
the fact that the two must advance hand in hand. The 
first crude theory or rough classification, based on veiw 
slight knowledge of the phenomena, is requisite as a means 
of reducing the phenomena to some kind of order ; and as 
supplying a conception with which fresh phenomena may 
be compared, and their agreement or disagreement noted., 
Incongruities being by and by made manifest by wider ex- 
amination of cases, there comes such modification of the 
theory as brings it into a nearer correspondence with the 
evidence. This reacts to the further advance of observa- 
tion. More extensive and complete observation brings ad 
ditional corrections of theory. And so on till the truth is 
reached. In mental science, the systematic collection of 
facts having but recently commenced, it is not to be ev 



308 BAIN ON THE EMOTIONS AND THE WILL. 

pected that the results can be at once rightly formulated 
All that may be looked for are approximate generalizations 
which will presently serve for the better directing of in 
quiry. Hence, even were it not now possible to say in what 
way it does so, we might be tolerably certain that Mr. 
Bain's work bears the stamp of the inchoate state of Psy- 
chology. 

We think, however, that it will not be difficult to find 
in what respects its organization is provisional ; and at the 
same time to show what must be the nature of a more 
complete organization. "We propose here to attempt this : 
illustrating our positions from his recently-issued second 
volume. 

Is it possible to make a true classification without the 
aid of analysis ? or must there not be an analytical basis to 
every true classification ? Can the real relations of things 
be determined by the obvious characteristics of the things? 
or does it not commonly happen that certain hidden 
characteristics, on which the obvious ones depend, are 
the truly significant ones ? This is the preliminary ques- 
tion which a glance at Mr. Bain's scheme of the emotions 
suggests. 

Though not avowedly, yet by implication, Mr. Bain 
assumes that a right conception of the nature, the order, 
and the relations of the emotions, may be arrived at by 
contemplating their conspicuous objective and subjective 
characters, as displayed in the adult. After pointing out 
that we lack those means of classification which serve in 
the case of the sensations, he says — 

" In these circumstances we must turn our attention to the 
manner of diffusion of the different passions and emotions, in 
order to obtain a basis of classification analogous to the arrange- 
ment of the sensations. If what we have already advanced on 
that subject be at all well founded, this is the genuine turning 



BODILY FEELINGS AND MENTAL STATES. 309 

tHiint of the method to he chosen, for the same mode of diffusion 
will always he accompanied by the same mental experience, and 
each of the two aspects would identify, and would be evidence 
of, the other. There is, therefore, nothing so thoroughly char- 
acteristic of any state of feeling as the nature of the diffusive 
wave that embodies it, or the various organs specially roused 
into action by it, together with the manner of the action. The 
only drawback is our comparative ignorance, and our inability 
to discern the precise character of the diffusive currents in every 
case ; a radical imperfection in the science of mind as constituted 
at present. 

" Our own consciousness, formerly reckoned the only medium 
of knowledge to the mental philosopher, must therefore be still 
referred to as a principal means of discriminating the varieties of 
human feeling. "We have the power of noting agreement and 
difference among our conscious states, and on this we can raise a 
structure of classification. We recognise such generalities as 
pleasure, pain, love, anger, through the property of mental or 
intellectual discrimination that accompanies in our mind the fact 
of an emotion. A certain degree of precision is attainable by 
this mode of mental comparison and analysis ; the farther we 
can carry such precision the better ; but that is no reason why it 
should stand alone to the neglect of the corporeal embodiments 
through which one mind reveals itself to others. The compan- 
ionship of inward feeling with bodily manifestation is a fact of 
the human constitution, and deserves to be studied as such ; and 
it would be difficult to find a place more appropriate than a 
treatise on the mind for setting forth the conjunctions and 
sequences traceable in this department of nature. I shall make 
no scruple in conjoining with the description of the mental 
phenomena the physical appearances, in so far as I am able to 
ascertain them. 

" There is still one other quarter to be referred to in settling a 
complete arrangement of the emotions, namely, the varieties of 
human conduct, and the machinery created in subservience to our 
common susceptibilities. For example, the vast superstructure of 
fine art has its foundations in human feeling, and in rendering an 
account of this we are led to recognise the interesting group of 
artistic or resthetic emotions. The same outward reference to 



310 BAIN ON THE EMOTIONS AND THE WILL. 

conduct and creations brings to light the so-called moral sense in 
man, whose foundations in the mental system have accordingly to 
be examined. 

" Combining together these various indications, or sources 
of discrimination, — outward objects, diffusive mode or expression, 
inward consciousness, resulting conduct and institutions — I adopt 
the following arrangement of the families or natural orders of 
emotion." 

Here, then, are confessedly adopted, as bases of classi- 
fication, the most manifest characters of the emotions ; as 
discerned subjectively, and objectively. The mode of dif- 
fusion of an emotion is one of its outside aspects ; the insti- 
tutions it generates form another of its outside aspects ; 
and though the peculiarities of the emotion as a state of 
consciousness, seem to express its intrinsic and ultimate 
nature, yet such peculiarities as are perceptible by simple 
introspection, must also be classed as superficial peculiari- 
ties. It is a familiar fact that various intellectual states of 
consciousness turn out, when analyzed, to have natures 
widely unlike those which at first appear ; and we believe 
the like will prove true of emotional states of conscious- 
ness. Just as our concept of space, which is apt to be 
thought a simple, undecoinposable concept, is yet resolva- 
ble into experiences quite different from that state of con- 
sciousness which we call space ; so, probably, the sentiment 
of affection or reverence is compounded of elements that 
are severally distinct from the whole which they make up. 
And much as a classification of our ideas which dealt with 
the idea of space as though it were ultimate, would be a 
classification of ideas by their externals ; so, a classification 
of our emotions, which, regarding them as simple, describes 
their aspects in ordinary consciousness, is a classification of 
emotions by their externals. 

Thus, then, Mr. Bain's grouping is throughout deter- 
mined by the most manifest attributes — those objective!} 



IMPERFECT BASIS OF HIS CLASSIFICATION. 811 

displayed in the natural language of the emotions, and 
in the social phenomena that result from them, and those 
subjectively displayed in the aspects the emotions assume 
in an analytical consciousness. And the question is — Can 
they he correctly grouped after this method ? 

We think not; and had Mr. Bain carried farther an idea 
with which he has set out, he would probably have seen 
that they cannot. As already said, he avowedly adopts 
" the natural-history-method : " not only referring to it in 
his preface, but in his first chapter giving examples of 
botanical and zoological classifications, as illustrating the 
mode in which he proposes to deal with the emotions. 
This we conceive to be a philosophical conception ; and we 
have only to regret that Mr. Bain has overlooked some of 
its most important implications. For in what has essentially 
consisted the progress of natural-history-classification ? In 
the abandonment of grouping by external, conspicuous 
characters ; and in the making of certain internal, but all- 
essential characters, the bases of groups. Whales are not 
now ranged along with fish, because in their general forms 
and habits of life they resemble fish ; but they are ranged 
with mammals, because the type of their organization, as 
ascertained by dissection, corresponds with that of the mam- 
mals. No longer considered as sea-weeds in virtue of their 
forms and modes of growth, zoophytes are now shown, by 
examination of their economy, to belong to the animal 
kingdom. 

It is found, then, that the discovery of real relation- 
ships involves analysis. It has turned out that the earlier 
classifications, guided by general resemblances, though 
containing much truth, and though very useful provision- 
ally, were yet in many cases radically wrong ; and that the 
true affinities of organisms, and the true homologies of 
their parts, are to be made out on'y by examining their 
bidden structures. Another fact of great significance m 
15 



312 BAIN ON THE EMOTIONS AND THE WILL. 

the history" of classification is also to be noted. Very fre- 
quently the kinship of an organism cannot be made out 
even by exhaustive analysis, if that analysis is confined to 
the adult structure. In many cases it is needful to ex- 
amine the structure in its earlier stages ; and even in its 
embryonic stage. So difficult was it, for instance, to de- 
termine the true position of the Cirrhipedia among animals, 
by examining mature individuals only, that Cuvier errone- 
ously classed them with Mollusca, even after dissecting 
them ; and not until their early forms were discovered, 
were they clearly proved to belong to the Crustacea. So 
important, indeed, is the study of development as a means 
to classification, that the first zoologists now hold it to be 
the only absolute criterion. 

Here, then, in the advance of natural-history-classifica- 
tion, are two fundamental facts, which should be borne in 
mind when classifying the emotions. If, as Mr. Bain right- 
ly assumes, the emotions are to be grouped after the natu- 
ral-history-method ; then it should be the natural history- 
method in its complete form, and not in its rude form. 
Mr. Bain will doubtless agree in the position, that a cor- 
rect account of the emotions in their natures and relations, 
must correspond with a correct account of the nervous 
system — must form another side of the same ultimate facts. 
Structure and function must necessarily harmonize. Struc- 
tures which have with each other certain ultimate connex- 
ions, must have functions that have answering connexions. 
Structures that have arisen in certain ways, must have func- 
tions that have arisen in parallel ways. And hence if anal- 
ysis and development are needful for the right interpreta- 
tion of structures, they must be needful for the right inter- 
pretation of functions. Just as a scientific description of 
the digestive organs, must include not only their obvioua 
forms and connexions, but their microscopic characters, 
EL' I also the wxys in which they severally result by differ 



HOW THE EMOTIONS ARE TO BE ANALYZED. 313 

entiation from the primitive mucous membi'ane ; so must 
a scientific account of the nervous system, include its gen- 
eral arrangements, its minute structure, and its mode of 
evolution ; and so must a scientific account of nervous ac- 
tions, include the answering three elements. Alike in class- 
ing separate organisms, and in classing the parts of the same 
organism, the complete natural-history-method involves 
ultimate analysis, aided by development ; and Mr. Bain, in 
not basing his classification of the emotions on characters 
reached through these aids, has fallen short of the concep- 
tion with which he set out. 

" But," it will perhaps be asked, " how are the emotions 
to be analyzed, and their modes of evolution to be ascer- 
tained ? Different animals, and different organs of the 
same animal, may readily be compared in their internal and 
microscopic structures, as also in their developments ; but 
functions, and especially such functions as the emotions, do 
not admit of like comparisons." 

It must be admitted that the application of these meth- 
ods is here by no means so easy. Though we can note dif- 
ferences and similarities between the internal formations of 
two animals ; it is difficult to contrast the mental states of 
two animals. Though the true morphological relations of 
organs may be made out by the observations of embryos ; 
yet, where such organs are inactive before birth, we cannot 
completely trace the history of their actions. Obviously, 
too, the pursuance of inquiries of the kind indicated, raises 
questions which science is not yet prepared to answer ; as, 
for instance — "Whether all nervous functions, in common 
with all other functions, arise by gradual differentiations, 
as their organs do ? Whether the emotions are, therefore, 
to be regarded as divergent modes of action, that have be- 
come unlike by successive modifications ? Whether, as 
two organs which originally budded out of the same mem. 
brane, have not only become different as they developed, 



314 BAIN ON THE EMOTIONS AND THE WILL. 

but have also severally become compound internally, though 
externally simple : so two emotions, simple and near akiu 
in their roots, may not only have grown unlike, but may 
also have grown involved in their natures, though seeming 
homogeneous to consciousness. And here, indeed, in the 
inability of existing science to answer these questions which 
underlie a true psychological classification, we see how 
purely provisional any present classification is likely to be. 

Nevertheless, even now, classification may be aided by 
development and ultimate analysis to a considerable extent ; 
and the defect in Mr. Bain's work is, that he has not syste- 
matically availed himself of them as far as possible. Thus 
we may, in the first place, study the evolution of the emo- 
tions up through the various grades of the animal kingdom : 
observing which of them are earliest and exist with the 
lowest organization and intelligence ; in what order the 
others accompany higher endowments ; and how they are 
severally related to the conditions of life. In the second 
place, we may note the emotional differences between 
the lower and the higher human races — may regard as 
earlier and simpler those feelings which are common to 
both, and as later and more compound those which are 
characteristic of the most civilized. In the third place, we 
may observe the order in which the emotions unfold during 
the progress from infancy to maturity. And lastly, compar- 
ing these three kinds of emotional development, displayed 
in the ascending grades of the animal kingdom, in the ad- 
vance of the civilized races, and in individual history, we 
may see in what respects they harmonize, and what are the 
implied general truths. 

Having gathered together and generalized these sever- 
&, classes of facts, analysis of the emotions would be mada 
easier. Setting out with the unquestionable assumption, 
that every new form of emotion making its appearance in 
the individual or the race, is a modification of somepre-ex 



EVOLUTION OF THE EMOTIONS. 315 

isting emotion, or a compounding of several pre-existing 
emotions; we should be greatly aided by knowing what 
always are the pre-existing emotions. When, for example, 
we find that very few if any of the lower animals show any 
love of accumulation, and that this feeling is absent in in- 
fancy — when we see that an infant in arms exhibits anger, 
fear, wonder, while yet it manifests no desire of permanent 
possession, and that a brute which has no acquisitive emotion 
can nevertheless feel attachment, jealousy, love of approba- 
tion ; we may suspect that the feeling which property satis- 
fies, is compounded out of simpler and deeper feelings. 
We may conclude that as, when a clog hides a bone, there 
must exist in him a prospective gratification of hunger ; so 
there must similarly at first, in all cases where anything is 
secured or taken possession of, exist an ideal excitement of 
the feeling which that thing will gratify. We may further 
conclude that when the intelligence is such that a variety 
of objects come to be utilized for different purposes — when, 
as among savages, divers wants are satisfied through the ar- 
ticles appropriated for weapons, shelter, clothing, ornament ; 
the act of appropriating comes to be one constantly involv- 
ing agreeable associations, and one which is therefore pleas- 
urable, irrespective of the end subserved. And when, as 
in civilized life, the property acquired is of a kind not con- 
ducing to one order of gratifications, but is capable of ad 
ministering to all gratifications, the pleasure of acquiring 
property grows more distinct from each of the various 
pleasures subserved — is more completely differentiated into 
a separate emotion. 

This illustration, roughly as it is sketched, will show 
what we mean by the use of comparative psychology in 
aid of classification. Ascertaining by induction the actual 
order of evolution of the emotions, we are led to suspect 
this to be their order of successive dependence ; and are so 
led to recognize their order of ascending complexity; and 
by consequence their true groupings- 



316 BAIN ON THE EMOTIONS AND THE WILL. 

Thus, in the very process of arranging the emotions 
into grades, beginning with those involved in the lowest 
forms of conscious activity and end with those peculiar to 
the adult civilized man, the way is opened for that ultimate 
analysis which alone can lead us to the true science of the 
matter. For when we find both that there exist in a man 
feelings which do not exist in a child, and that the Euro- 
pean is characterized by some sentiments which are wholly 
or in a great part absent from the savage — when we see 
that, besides the new emotions that arise spontaneously as 
the individual becomes completely organized, there are new 
emotions making their appearance in the more advanced 
divisions of our race ; we are led to ask — How are new 
emotions generated ? The lowest savages have not even 
the ideas of justice or mercy : they have neither words for 
them nor can they be made to conceive them ; and the man- 
ifestation of them by Europeans they ascribe to fear or 
cunning. There are aesthetic emotions common among 
ourselves, that are scarcely in any degree experienced by 
some inferior races ; as, for instance, those produced by 
music. To which instances may be added the less marked 
but more numerous contrasts that exist between civilized 
races in the degrees of their several emotions. And if it 
is manifest, both that all the emotions are capable of being 
permanently modified in the course of successive genera- 
tions, and that what must be'classed as new emotions may 
be brought into existence ; then it follows that nothing like 
a true conception of the emotions is to be obtained, until we 
understand how they are evolved. 

Comparative psychology, while it raises this inquiry, 
prepares the way for answering it. When observing the 
differences between races, we can scarcely fail to observe 
also how these differences correspond with differences in their 
conditions of existence, and therefore in their daily experi- 
ences. Note the contrast between the circumstances and be- 



GENESIS OF NEW EMOTIONS. 317 

tween the emotional natures of savage and civilized. Among 
tie lowest races of men, love of property stimulates to the 
obtaimnent only of such things as satisfy immediate desires 
or desires of the immediate future. Improvidence is the 
rule : there is little effort to meet remote contingencies. But 
the growth of established societies, having gradually given 
security of possession, there has been an increasing tendency 
to provide for coming years : there has been a constant 
exercise of the feeling which is satisfied by a provision for 
the future ; and there has been a growth of this feeling so 
great that it now prompts accumulation to an extent be- 
yond what is needful. Note, again, that under the disci- 
pline of social life — under a comparative abstinence from 
aggressive actions, and a performance of those mutually- 
serviceable actions implied by the division of labour — 
there has been a development of those gentle emotions of 
which inferior races exhibit but the rudiments. Savages 
delight in giving pain rather than pleasure — are almost de- 
void of sympathy. While among ourselves philanthropy 
organizes itself in laws, establishes numerous institutions, 
and dictates countless private benefactions. 

From which and other like facts, does it not seem an 
unavoidable inference that new emotions are developed by 
new experiences — new habits of life ? All are familiar with 
the truth, that in the individual, each feeling maybe strength- 
ened by performing those actions which it prompts ; and to 
say that the feeling is strengthened, is to say that it is in 
part made by these actions. We know further, that not 
uufrequently, individuals, by persistence in special courses 
of conduct, acquire special likings for such courses disagree- 
able as these may be to others ; and these whims, or mor- 
bid tastes, imply incipient emotions corresponding to these 
special activities. We know that emotional characteristics, 
in common with all others, are hereditary ; and the differ- 
ences between civilized nations descended from the same 



318 BAIN ON THE EMOTIONS AND THE WILL. 

stock, show us the cumulative results of small modifications 
hereditarily transmitted. And when we see that between 
savage and civilized races, which diverged from each other 
in the remote past, and have for a hundred generations fol- 
lowed modes of life becoming ever more unlike, there ex- 
ist still greater emotional contrasts ; may we not infer that 
the more or less distinct emotions which characterize civil- 
ized races, are the organized results of certain daily-repeat- 
ed combinations of mental states which social life involves ? 
Must we not say that habits not only modify emotions in 
the individual, and not only beget tendencies to like 
habits and accompanying emotions in descendants, but that 
when the conditions of the race make the habits per- 
sistent, this progressive modification may go on to the ex- 
tent of producing emotions so far distinct as to seem new ? 
And if so, we may suspect that such new emotions, and 
by implication all emotions analytically considered, consist 
of aggregated and consolidated groups of those simpler 
feelings which habitually occur together in experience : 
that they result from combined experiences, and are con- 
stituted of them. 

When, in the circumstances of any race, some one kind of 
action or set of actions, sensation or set of sensations, is usual- 
ly followed, or accompanied by, various other sets of actions 
or sensations, and so entails a large mass of pleasurable or 
painful states of consciousness ; these, by frequent repetition, 
become so connected together that the initial action or sensa- 
tion brings the ideas of all the rest crowding into conscious- 
ness : producing, in a degree, the pleasures or pains that 
have before been felt in reality. And when this relation, 
besides being frequently repeated in the individual, occurs 
in successive generations, all the many nervous actions in- 
volved tend to grow organically connected. They become 
incipiently reflex ; and on the occurrence of the appropriate 
stimulus, the whole nervous apparatus which in past gener 



GEOWTH OF EMOTIONS IN ANIMALS. 319 

ations was brought into activity by this stimulus, becomes 
nascently excited. Even while yet there have been no indi- 
vidual experiences, a vague feeling of pleasure or pain is 
produced ; constituting what we may call the body of the 
emotion. And when the experiences of past generations 
come to be repeated in the individual, the emotion gains 
both strength and definiteness ; and is accompanied by the 
appropriate specific ideas. 

This view of the matter, which we believe the estab- 
lished truths of Physiology and Psychology unite in indi- 
cating, and which is the view that generalizes the pheno- 
mena of habit, of national characteristics, of civilization in 
its moral aspects, at the same time that it gives us a con- 
ception of emotion in its origin and ultimate nature, may 
be illustrated from the mental modifications undergone by 
animals. 

It is well-known that on newly-discovered lands not in- 
habited by man, birds are so devoid of fear as to allow 
themselves to be knocked over with sticks ; but that in the 
course of generations, they acquire such a dread of man as 
to fly on his approach ; and that this dread is manifested by 
young as well as old. ~Now unless this change be ascribed 
to the killing-off of the least fearful, and the preservation 
and multiplication of the more fearful, which, considering 
the comparatively small number killed by man, is an inade- 
quate cause ; it must be ascribed to accumulated expe- 
riences ; and each experience must be held to have a share 
in producing it. "We must conclude that in each bird that 
escapes with injuries inflicted by man, or is alarmed by the 
outcries of other members of the flock (gregarious crea- 
tures of any intelligence being necessarily more or less 
sympathetic), there is established an association of ideas 
between the human aspect and the pains, direct and indi- 
rect, suffered from human agency. And we must further 
conclude, that the state of consciousness which impels the 



320 BAIN ON THE EMOTIONS AND THE WILL. 

bird to take flight, is at first nothing more than an ide.ii 
reproduction of those painful impressions which before fol 
lowed man's approach ; that such ideal reproduction be- 
comes more vivid and more massive as the painful expe- 
riences, direct or sympathetic, increase ; and that thus the 
emotion m its incipient state, is nothing else than an aggre- 
gation of the revived pains before experienced. 

As, in the course of generations, the young birds of this 
race begin to display a fear of man before yet they have 
been injured by him ; it is an unavoidable inference that 
the nervous system of the race has been organically modi- 
fied by these experiences : we have no choice but to con- 
clude that when a young bird is thus led to fly, it is be- 
cause the impression produced on its senses by the ap- 
proaching man, entails, through an incipiently-reflex action, 
a iwtial excitement of all those nerves which in its ances^ 
tors had been excited under the like conditions ; that this 
partial excitement has its accompanying painful conscious- 
ness ; and that the vague painful consciousness thus arising, 
constitutes emotion proper — emotion undecomposable into 
specific experiences, and therefore seemingly homogeneous. 

If such be the explanation of the fact in this case, then 
it is in all cases. If emotion is so generated here, then it 
is so generated throughout. "We must perforce conclude 
that the emotional modifications displayed by different na- 
tions, and those higher emotions by which civilized are dis- 
tinguished from savage, are to be accounted for on the 
same principle. And concluding this, we are led strongly 
to suspect that the emotions in general have severally thus 
originated. 

Perhaps we have now made sufficiently clear what we 
mean by the study of the emotions through analysis and 
development. We have aimed to justify the positions that, 
without analysis aided by development, there cannot be a 
true natural history of the emotions ; and that a natural 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE EMOTIONS NEGLECTED. 321 

history of the emotions based on external characters, can 
be but provisional. We think that Mr. Bain, in confining 
himself to an account of the emotions as they exist in the 
adult civilized man, has neglected those classes of facts out 
of which the science of the matter must chiefly be built. 
It is true that he has treated of habits as modifying emo- 
tions in the individual ; but he has not recognized the fact, 
that where conditions render habits persistent in successive 
generations, such modifications are cumulative : he has not 
hinted that the modifications produced by habit are emo 
tions in the making. It is true, also, that he occasionally 
refers to the characteristics of children ; but he does not 
systematically trace the changes through which childhood 
passes into manhood, as throwing light on the order and 
genesis of the emotions. It is further true that he here 
and there refers to national traits in illustration of his sub- 
ject ; but these stand as isolated facts, having no general 
significance : there is no hint of any relation between them 
and the national circumstances ; while all those many moral 
contrasts between lower and higher races which throw 
great light on classification, are passed over. And once 
more, it is true that many passages of his work, and some- 
times, indeed, whole sections of it, are analytical ; but his 
analyses are incidental — they do not underlie his entire 
scheme, but are here and there added to it. In brief, he 
has written a Descriptive Psychology, which does not ap- 
peal to Comparative Psychology and Analytical Psychol- 
ogy for its leading ideas. And in doing this, he has omit- 
ted much that should be included in a natural history of 
the mind ; while to that part of the subject with which he 
has dealt, he has given a necessai'ily-imperfect organization. 

Even leaving out of view the absence of those methods 
and criteria on which we have been insisting, it appears to 
as that meritorious as is Mr. Bain's book in its details, it is 



322 BAIN ON THE EMOTIONS AND THE WILL. 

defective in some of its leading ideas. The first para 
graphs of his first chapter, quite startled us by the strange- 
ness of their definitions — a strangeness which can scarcely 
be ascribed to laxity of expression. The paragraphs run 
thus : — 

"Mind is comprised under three heads — Emotion, Volition, 
aud Intellect. 

" Emotion is the name here used to comprehend all that is un- 
derstood by feelings, states of feeling, pleasures, pains, passions, 
sentiments, affections. Consciousness, and conscious states also 
for the most part denote modes of emotion, although there is such 
a thing as the Intellectual consciousness. 

" Volition, on the other hand, indicates the great fact that our 
Pleasures and Pains, which are not the whole of our emotions, 
prompt us to action, or stimulate the active machinery of the liv- 
ing framework to perform such operations as procure the first and 
abate the last. To withdraw from a scalding heat and cling to a 
gentle warmth, are exercises of volition." 

The last of these definitions, which we may most con- 
veniently take first, seems to us very faulty. We cannot 
but feel astonished that Mr. Bain, familiar as he is with the 
phenomena of reflex action, should have so expressed him- 
self as to include a great part of them along with the phe- 
nomena of volition. He seems to be ignoring the discrimi- 
nations of modern science, and returning to the vague con- 
ceptions of the past — nay more, he is comprehending under 
volition what even the popular speech would hardly bring 
under it. If you were to blame any one for snatching his 
foot from the scalding water into which he had inadver- 
tently put it, he would tell you that he could not help it ; 
and his reply would be indorsed by the general experience, 
that the withdrawal of a limb from contact with something 
extremely hot, is quite involuntary — that it takes place not 
only without volition, but in defiance of an effort of will to 
maintain the contact. How. then, can that be instanced as 



VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY ACTIONS. 323 

an example of volition, which occurs even when volition is 
antagonistic ? We are quite aware that it is impossible to 
draw any absolute line of demarcation between automatic 
actions and actions which are not automatic. Doubtless 
we may j^ass gradually from the purely reflex, through the 
consensual, to the voluntary. Taking the case Mr. Bain 
cites, it is manifest that from a heat of such moderate de- 
gree that the withdrawal from it is wholly voluntary, we 
may advance by infinitesimal steps to a heat which compels 
involuntary withdrawal ; and that there is a stage at which 
the voluntary and involuntary actions are mixed. But the 
difficulty of absolute discrimination is no reason for neg- 
lecting the broad general contrast ; any more than it is for 
confounding light with darkness. If we are to include as 
examples of volition, all cases in which pleasures and pains 
" stimulate the active machinery of the living framework 
to perform such operations as procure the first and abate 
the last," then we must consider sneezing and coughing, as 
examples of volition ; and Mr. Bain surely cannot mean 
this. Indeed, we must confess ourselves at a loss. On the 
one hand if he does not mean it, his expression is lax to a 
degree that surprises us in so careful a writer. On the 
other hand, if he does mean it, we cannot understand his 
point of view. 

A parallel criticism applies to his definition of Emotion. 
Here, too, he has departed from the ordinary acceptation 
of the word ; and, as we think, in the wrong direction. 
Whatever may be the interpretation that is justified by its 
derivation, the word Emotion has come generally to mean 
that kind of feeling which is not a direct result of any ac- 
tion on the organism ; but is either an indirect result of 
eucli action, or arises quite apart from such action. It is 
used to indicate those sentient states which are independ- 
ently generated in consciousness ; as distinguished from 
those generated in our corporeal framework, and known as 



324 BAIN ON THE EMOTIONS AND THE "WILL. 

sensations. Now this distinction, tacitly made in common 
speech, is one which Psychology cannot well reject ; but one 
which it must adopt, and to which it must give scientific 
precision. Mr. Bain, however, appears to ignore any such 
distinction. Under the term " emotion," he includes not 
only passions, sentiments, affections, but all " feelings, states 
of feeling, pleasures, pains," — that is, all sensations. This 
does not appear to be a mere lapse of expression ; for when, 
in the opening sentence, he asserts that " mind is compi'ised 
under the three heads — Emotion, Volition, and Intellect," 
he of necessity implies that sensation is included under one 
of these heads ; and as it cannot be included under Yolition 
or Intellect, it must be classed with Emotion : as it clearly 
is in the next sentence. 

We cannot but think this is a retrograde step. Though 
distinctions which have been established in popular thought 
and language, are not unfrequently merged in the higher 
generalizations of science (as, for instance, when crabs and 
worms are grouped together in the sub-kingdom Annu- 
losa f) yet science very generally recognizes the validity of 
these distinctions, as real though not fundamental. And so 
in the present case. Such community as analysis discloses 
between sensation and emotion, must not shut out the 
broad contrast that exists between them. If there needs a 
wider word, as there does, to signify any sentient state 
whatever; then we may fitly adopt for this purpose the 
word currently so used, namely, " Feeling." And consid- 
ering as Feelings all that great division of mental states 
which we do not class as Cognitions, may then separate 
this great division into the two orders, Sensatious and Emo- 
tions. 

And here we may, before concluding, briefly indicate 
the leading outlines of a classification which reduces this 
distinction to a scientific form, and developes it somewhat 



CLASSIFICATION OF THE COGNITIONS. 325 

further — a classification which, while suggested by certain 
fundamental traits reached without a very lengthened in- 
quiry, is yet, we believe, in harmony with that disclosed by 
detailed analysis. 

Leaving out of view the "Will, which is a simple homo- 
geneous mental state, forming the link between feeling 
and action, and not admitting of subdivisions ; our states oi 
consciousness fall into two great classes — Cognitions and 
Feelings. 

Cognitions, or those modes of mind in which we are 
occupied with the relations that subsist among our feelings, 
are divisible into four great sub-classes. 

JPresentative cognitions / or those in which conscious- 
ness is occupied in localizing a sensation impressed on the 
organism — occupied, that is, with the relation between this 
presented mental state and those other presented mental 
states which make up our consciousness of the part afiected: 
as when we cut ourselves. 

Presentative-representative cognitions; or those in 
which consciousness is occupied with the relation between 
a sensation or group of sensations and the representa- 
tions of those various other sensations that accompany it 
in experience. This is what we commonly call perception 
— an act in which, along with certain impressions presented 
to consciousness, there arise in consciousness the ideas of 
certain other impressions ordinarily connected with the 
presented ones : as when its visible form and colour, 
lead us to mentally endow an orange with all its other 
attributes. 

Representative cognitions / or those in which conscious- 
ness is occupied with the relations among ideas or repre- 
sented sensations : as in all acts of recollection. 

Re-representative cognitions ; or those in which tha 
occupation of consciousness is not by representation of 
special relations, that have before been presented to con 



326 BAUST ON THE emotions and the will. 

Bcionsness; but those in which such represented special 
relations are thought of merely as comprehended in a gen- 
eral relation — those iu which the concrete relations once 
experienced, in so far as they become objects of conscious- 
ness at all, are incidentally represented, along with the 
abstract relation which formulates them. The ideas result- 
ing from this abstraction, do not themselves represent ac- 
tual experiences ; but are symbols which stand for groups 
of such actual experiences — represent aggregates of repre- 
sentations. And thus they may be called re-represen- 
tative cognitions. It is clear that the process of re-repre- 
sentation is carried to higher stages, as the thought be- 
comes more abstract. 

Feelings, or those modes of mind in which we are 
occupied, not with the relations subsisting between our sen- 
tient states, but with the sentient states themselves, are di- 
visible into four parallel sub-classes. 

JPresentative feeh?igs, ordinarily called sensations, are 
those mental states in which, instead of regarding a corpo- 
real impression as of this or that kind, or as located here or 
there, we contemplate it in itself as pleasure or pain : as 
when eating. 

JPresentative-representative feelings, embracing a great 
part of what we commonly call emotions, are those in 
which a sensation, or group of sensations or group of sen- 
sations and ideas, arouses a vast aggregation of represented 
sensations ; partly of individual experience, but chiefly 
deeper than individual experience, and, consequently, in- 
definite. The emotion of terror may serve as an example. 
Along with certain impressions made on the eyes or ears, 
or both, are recalled in consciousness many of the pains to 
which such impressions have before been the antecedents ■ 
and when the relation between such impressions and such 
pains has been habitual in the race, the definite ideas of 
•rach pains which individual experience has given, arc 



CLASSIFICATION OF THE FEELINGS. 327 

Accompanied by the indefinite pains that result from inherit- 
ed experience — vague feelings which we may call organic 
representations. In an infant, crying at a strange sight or 
sound while yet in the nurse's arms, we see these organic 
representations called into existence in the shape of dim 
discomfort, to which individual experience has yet given 
ao specific outlines, 

Representative feelings, comprehending the ideas of 
the feelings above classed, when they are called up apart 
from the appropriate external excitements. As instances 
of these may be named the feelings with which the descrip- 
tive poet writes, and which are aroused in the minds of his 
readers. 

Re-representative feelings, under which head are included 
those more complex sentient states that are less the direct 
results of external excitements than the indirect or reflex 
results of them. The love of property is a feeling of this 
kind. It is awakened not by the presence of any special 
object, but by ownable objects at large ; and it is not from 
the mere presence of such object, but from a certain ideal 
relation to them, that it arises. As before shown (p. 311) 
it consists, not of the represented advantages of possessing 
this or that, but of the represented advantages of posses- 
sion in general — is not made up of certain concrete repre- 
sentations, but of the abstracts of many concrete represen- 
tations ; and so is re-representative. The higher senti- 
ments, as that of justice, are still more completely of this 
nature. Here the sentient state is compounded out of 
sentient states that are themselves wholly, or almost wholly, 
re-representative : it involves representations of those low 
er emotions which are produced by the possession of prop- 
erty, by freedom of action, etc.; and thus is re-representa- 
tive in a higher degree. 

This classification, here roughly indicated and capable 
if further expansion, will be found in harmony with the re- 



328 BAIN ON THE EMOTIONS AND THE WILL. 

suits of detailed analysis aided by development. Whether 
we trace mental progression through the grades of the ani- 
mal kingdom, through the grades of mankind, or through 
the stages of individual growth ; it is obvious that the ad 
vance, alike in cognitions and feelings, is, and must be, 
from the presentative to the more and more remotely rep- 
resentative. It is undeniable that intelligence ascends 
from those simple perceptions in which consciousness is 
occupied in localizing and classifying sensations, to percep- 
tions more and more compound, to simple reasoning, to 
reasoning more and more complex and abstract — more 
and more remote from sensation. And in the evolution of 
feelings, there is a parallel series of steps. Simple sensa- 
tions ; sensations combined together ; sensations combined 
with represented sensations ; represented sensations organ- 
ized into groups, in which their separate characters are 
very much merged ; representations of these representa- 
tive groups, in which the original components have be- 
come still more vague. In both cases, the progress 
has necessarily been from the simple and concrete to 
the complex and abstract : and as with the cognitions, 
so with the feelings, this must be the basis of classifi- 
cation. 

The space here occupied with criticisms on Mr. Bain's 
work, we might have filled with exposition and eulogy, had 
we thought this the more important. Though we have 
freely pointed out what we conceive to be its defects, let it 
not be inferred that we question its great merits. We re- 
peat that, as a natural history of the mind, we believe it to 
be the best yet produced. It is a most valuable collection 
of carefully-elaborated materials. Perhaps we cannot bet- 
ter express our sense of its worth, than by saying that, to 
those who hereafter give to this branch of Psychology a 
thoroughly scientific organization, Mr. Bain's book will be 
indispensable. 



VIII 
ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 



ri^HAT proclivity to generalization which is possessed in 
I greater or less degree by all minds, and without which 
indeed, intelligence cannot exist, has unavoidable incon- 
veniences. Through it alone can truth be reached ; and 
yet it almost inevitably betrays into error. But for the 
tendency to predicate of every other case, that which has 
been found in the observed cases, there could be no ra- 
tional thinking ; and yet by this indispensable tendency, 
men are perpetually led to found, on limited experience, 
propositions which they wrongly assume to be universal or 
absolute. In one sense, however, this can scarcely be re- 
garded as an evil; for without premature generalizations 
the true generalization would never be arrived >at. If we 
waited till all the facts were accumulated before trying to 
formulate them, the vast unorganized mass would be un- 
manageable. Only by provisional grouping can they be 
brought into such order as to be dealt with ; and this pro- 
visional grouping is but another name for premature gen- 
eralization. 

How uniformly men follow this course, and how need- 
ful the errors are as steps to truth, is well illustrated in the 
history of Astronomy. The heavenly bodies move round 



330 ILLOGICAL, GEOLOGY. 

the Earth in circles, said the earliest observers : led partly 
by the appearances, and partly by their experiences of cen- 
tral motions in terrestrial objects, with which, as all circu- 
lar, they classed the celestial motions from lack of any 
alternative conception. Without this provisional belief, 
wrong as it was, there could not have been that compari- 
son of positions which showed that the motions are not 
representable by circles ; and which led to the hypothesis 
of epicycles and eccentrics. Only by the aid of this hy- 
pothesis, equally untrue, but capable of accounting more 
nearly for the aj)pearances, and so of inducing more ac- 
curate observations — only thus did it become possible for 
Copernicus to show that the heliocentric theory is more 
feasible than the geocentric theory ; or for Kepler to show 
that the planets move round the sun in ellipses. Yet 
again, without -the aid of this approximate truth discovered 
by Kepler, Newton could not have established that general 
law from which it follows, that the motion of a heavenly 
body round its centre of gravity is not necessarily in an 
ellipse, but may be in any conic section. And lastly, it 
was only after the law of gravitation had been verified, 
that it became possible to determine the actual courses of 
planets, satellites, and comets ; and to prove that, in con- 
sequence of perturbations, their orbits always deviate, more 
or less, from regular curves. Thus, there followed one 
another five provisional theories of the Solar System, 
before the sixth and absolutely true theory was reached. 
In which five provisional theories, each for a time held 
as final, we may trace both the tendency men have to 
leap from scanty data to wide generalizations, that are 
either untrue or but partially true ; and the necessity 
there is for these transitional generalizations as steps to the 
final one. 

In the progress of geological speculation the same laws 
of thought are clearly displayed. We have dogmas thai 



HOW THE SCIENCE HAS BEEN DEVELOPED. 331 

were more than half false, passing current for a time a? 
universal truths. We have evidence collected in proof of 
these dogmas ; by and by a colligation of facts in antagon- 
ism with them ; and eventually a consequent modification. 
In conformity with this somewhat improved hypothesis, we 
have a better classification of facts ; a greater power of 
arranging and interpreting the new facts now rapidly 
gathered together ; and further resulting corrections of 
hypothesis. Being, as we are at present, in the midst of 
this process, it is not possible to give an adequate account 
of the development of geological science as thus regarded : 
the earlier stages are alone known to us. Not only, how- 
ever, is it interesting to observe how the more advanced 
views now received respecting the Earth's history, have 
been evolved out of the crude views which preceded them; 
but we shall find it extremely instructive to observe this. 
We shall see how greatly the old ideas still sway, both the 
general mind, and the minds of geologists themselves. 
We shall see how the kind of evidence that has in part 
abolished these old ideas, is still daily accumulating, and 
threatens to make other like revolutions. In brief, we 
shall see whereabouts we are in the elaboration of a true 
theory of the Earth ; and, seeing our whereabouts, shall be 
the better able to judge, among various conflicting opinions, 
which best conform to the ascertained direction of geologi- 
cal discovery. 

It is alike needless and impracticable here to enumerate 
the many speculations which were in earlier ages propound- 
ed by acute men — speculations some of which contained 
portions of truth. Falling in unfit times, these speculations 
did not germinate ; and hence do not concern us. We 
have nothing to do with ideas, however good, out of which 
no science grew ; but only with those which gave origin to 
the system of Geology that now exists. We therefore be« 
gin with Werner 



332 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

Taking for data the appearances of the Earth's crust ir 
a narrow district of Germany ; observing the constant or 
der of superposition of strata, and their respective physical 
characters ; "Werner drew the inference that strata of like 
characters succeeded each other in like order over the en- 
tire surface of the Earth. And seeing, from the laminated 
structure of many formations and the organic remains con- 
tained in others, that they were sedimentary ; he further 
inferred that these universal strata had been in succession 
precipitated from a chaotic menstruum which once cov- 
ered our planet. Thus, on a very incomplete acquaintance 
with a thousandth part of the Earth's crust, he based a 
sweeping generalization applying to the whole of it. This 
Neptunist hypothesis, mark, borne out though it seemed to 
be by the most conspicuous surrounding facts, was quite 
untenable if analyzed. That a universal chaotic menstruum 
should deposit, one after another, numerous sharply-defined 
strata, differing from each other in composition, is incom- 
prehensible. That the strata so deposited should contain 
the remains of plants and animals, which could not have 
lived under the supposed conditions, is still more incom- 
prehensible. Physically absurd, however, as was this hypo- 
thesis, it recognized, though under a distorted form, one 
of the great agencies of geological change — that of water. 
It served also to express the fact that the formations of the 
Earth's crust stand in some kind of order. Further, it did 
a little towards supplying a nomenclature, without which 
much progress was impossible. Lastly, it furnished a stand- 
ard with which successions of strata in various regions 
could be compared, the differences noted, and the actual 
sections tabulated. It was the first provisional generaliza- 
tion ; and was useful, if not indispensable, as a step to truer 
ones. 

Following this rude conception, which ascribed geologi- 
cal phenomena to one agency, acting during one primeval 



THE0EIE8 OF WEENER AND HUTTON. 333 

epoch, there came a greatly-improved conception, which 
ascribed them to two agencies, acting alternately during 
successive epochs. Hutton, perceiving that sedimentary 
deposits were still being formed at the bottom of the sea 
from the detritus carried down by rivers ; perceiving, fur- 
ther, that the strata of which the visible surface chiefly con- 
sists, bore marks of having been similarly formed out of 
pre-existing land ; and inferring that these strata could 
have become land only by upheaval after their deposit ; 
concluded that throughout an indefinite past, there had 
been periodic convulsions, by which continents were raised, 
with intervening eras of repose, during which such continents 
were worn down and transformed into new marine strata, 
fated to be in their turns elevated above the surface of the 
ocean. And finding that igneous action, to which sundry 
earlier geologists had ascribed basaltic rocks, was in count- 
less places a source of disturbance, he taught that from it 
resulted these periodic convulsions. In this theory we see : 
— first, that the previously-recognized agency of water was 
conceived to act, not as by Werner, after a manner of 
which we have no experience, but after a manner daily dis- 
played to us ; and second, that the igneous agency, before 
considered only as a cause of special formations, was rec- 
ognized as a universal agency, but assumed to act in an 
unproved way. Werner's sole process, Hutton developed 
from the catastrophic and inexplicable into the uniform and 
explicable ; while that antagonistic second process, of 
which he first adequately estimated the importance, was 
regarded by him as a catastrophic one, and was not assimi- 
lated to known processes — not explained. We have here 
to note, however, that the facts collected and provisionally 
arranged in conformity with Werner's theory, served, 
after a time, to establish Hutton's more rational theory 
— in so far, at least, as aqueous formations, are concerned ; 
svhile the doctrine of periodic subterranean convulsions, 



33i ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

crudely as it was conceived by Hutton, was a temporary 
generalization needful as a step towards the theory of igne- 
ous action. 

Since Hutton's time, the development of geological 
thought has gone still further in the same direction. These 
early sweeping doctrines have received additional qualifica- 
tions. It has been discovered that more numerous and 
more heterogeneous agencies have been at work, than waa 
at first believed. The igneous hypothesis has been ration- 
alized, as the aqueous one had previously been : the gratui- 
tous assumption of vast elevations suddenly occurring after 
long intervals of quiescence, has grown into the consistent 
theory, that islands and continents are the accumulated re- 
sults of successive small upheavals, like those experienced 
in ordinary earthquakes. 

To speak more specifically, we find, in the first place, 
that instead of assuming the denudation produced by rain 
and rivers to be the sole means of wearing down lands and 
producing their irregularities of surface, geologists now 
see that denudation is only a part-cause of such irregulari- 
ties ; and further, that the new strata deposited at the bot- 
tom of the sea, are not the products of river-sediment sole- 
ly, but are in part due to the action of waves and tidal cur- 
rents on the coasts. In the second place, we find that Hut- 
ton's conception of upheaval by subterranean forces, has not 
only been modified by assimilating these subterranean forces 
to ordinary earthquake-forces; but modern inquiries have 
shown that, besides elevations of surface, subsidences are thus 
produced ; that local upheavals, as well as the general up- 
heavals, which raise continents, come within the same 
category ; and that all these changes are probably con- 
sequent on the progressive collapse of the Earth's crust 
upon its cooling and contracting nucleus — the only ade- 
quate cause. In the third place, we find that beyond 
these two great antagonist agencies, modern Geology re- 



PEOGEESS OF GEOLOGIC THEOET 335 

cognises sundry minor ones : as those of glaciers and ice- 
bergs ; those of coral-polypes ; those of Protozoa having 
siliceous or calcareous shells — each of which agencies, insig- 
nificant as it seems, is found capable of slowly working 
terrestrial changes of considerable magnitude. Thus, then, 
the recent progress of Geology has been a still further de- 
parture from primitive conceptions. Instead of one cata- 
strophic cause, once in universal action, as supposed by 
"Werner — instead of one general continuous cause, antago- 
nized at long intervals by a catastrophic cause, as taught 
by Hutton ; we now recognize several causes, all more or 
less general and continuous. We no longer resort to hy- 
pothetical agencies to explain the phenomena displayed by 
the Earth's crust ; but we are day by day more clearly per- 
ceiving that these phenomena have arisen from forces like 
those now at work, which have acted in all varieties of 
combination, through immeasurable periods of time. 

Having thus briefly traced the evolution of geologic 
science, and noted its present form, let us go on to observe 
the way in which it is still swayed by the crude hypotheses 
it set out with ; so that even now, old doctrines that are 
abandoned as untenable in theory, continue in practice to 
mould the ideas of geologists, and to foster sundry beliefs 
that are logically indefensible. We shall see, both how 
those simple sweeping conceptions with which the science 
commenced, are those which every student is apt at first to 
seize hold of, and how several influences conspire to main- 
tain the twist thus resulting — how the original nomencla- 
ture of periods and formations necessarily keeps alive the 
original implications ; and how the need for arranging new 
data in some order, naturally results in their being thrust 
into the old classification, unless their incongruity with it is 
very glaring. A few facts will best prepare the way for 
criticism. 

16 



336 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGT. 

Up to 1839 it was inferred, from their crystalline char, 
acter, that the metamorphic rocks of Anglesea are more 
ancient than any rocks of the adjacent main land ; but it 
has since been shown that they are of the same age with the 
slates and grits of Carnarvon and Merioneth. Again, slaty 
cleavage having been first found only in the lowest rocks, 
was taken as an indication of the highest antiquity : whence 
resulted serious mistakes ; for this mineral characteristic 
is now known to occur in the Carboniferous system. Once 
more, certain red conglomerates and grits on the north-west 
coast of Scotland, long supposed from their lithological as- 
pect to belong to the Old Red Sandstone, are now identifi- 
ed with the Lower Silurians. 

These are a few instances of the small trust to be placed in 
mineral qualities, as evidence of the ages or relative posi- 
tions of strata. From the recently-published third edition 
of Siluria, may be culled numerous facts of like implication. 
Sir R. Murchison considers it ascertained, that the silioeous 
Stiper stones of Shropshire are the equivalents of the Tre- 
madock slates of North Wales. Judged by their fossils, 
Bala slate and limestone are of the same age as the Cara- 
doc sandstone, lying forty miles off. In Radnorshire, the 
formation classed as upper Llandovery rock, is described 
at different spots, as " sandstone or conglomerate," " impure 
limestone," " hard coarse grits," " siliceous grit " — a consid- 
erable variation for so small an area as that of a county. 
Certain sandy beds on the left bank of the Towy, which 
Sir R. Murchison had, in his Silurian System, classed as 
Caradoc sandstone (evidently from their mineral characters), 
he now finds, from their fossils, belong to the Llandeilo for- 
mation. Nevertheless, inferences from mineral characters 
are still habitually drawn and received. Though Siberia, 
in common with other geological works, supplies numerous 
proofs that rocks of the same age are often of widely-dif- 
ferent composition a few miles off, while rocks of widely 



MINEEAL CHAEACTEES OF STEATA UNCEETAIN. 337 

different ages are often of similar composition ; and though 
Sir. R,. Murchison shows us, as in the case just cited, that 
he has himself in past times been misled by trusting to lith- 
ological evidence ; yet his reasoning, all through Siluria, 
shows that he still thinks it natural to expect formations of 
the same age to be chemically similar, even in remote re- 
gions. For example, in treating of the Silurian rocks of 
South Scotland, he says : — " When traversing the tract be- 
tween Dumfries and Moffat in 1850, it occm*red to me that 
the dull reddish or purple sandstone and schist to the north 
of the former town, which so resembled the bottom rocks 
of the Longmynd, Llanberis, and St. David's, would 
prove to be of the same age ; " and further on he again 
insists upon the fact that these strata " are absolutely of 
the same composition as the bottom rocks of the Silurian 
region." 

On this unity of mineral character it is, that this Scot- 
tish formation is concluded to be contemporaneous with 
the lowest formations in Wales ; for the scanty palseontolo- 
gical evidence suffices neither for proof nor disproof. Now, 
had there been a continuity of like strata in like order be- 
tween Wales and Scotland, there might have been little to 
criticise in this conclusion. But since Sir R. Murchison 
himself admits, that in Westmoreland and Cumberland, 
some members of the system " assume a lithological aspect 
different from what they maintain in the Silurian and 
Welsh region," there seems no reason to expect mineralogical 
continuity in Scotland. Obviously therefore, the assump- 
tion that these Scottish formations are of the same age 
with the Longmynd of Shropshire, implies the latent be- 
lief that certain mineral characters indicate certain eras. 

Far more striking instances, however, of the influence 
of this latent belief remain to be given. Not in such com- 
paratively near districts as the Scottish lowlands only, does 
Sir R. Murchison expect a repetition of the Longmynd 



338 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

strata ; but in the Rhenish provinces, certain " quartzose 
flagstones and grits, like those of the Longmynd," are 
seemingly concluded to be of contemporaneous origin, be- 
cause of their likeness. " Quartzites in roofing-slates with 
a greenish tinge that reminded us of the lower slates of 
Cumberland and Westmoreland," are evidently suspected 
to be of the same age. In Russia, he remarks that the car- 
boniferous limestones " are overlaid along the western edge 
of the Ural chain by sandstones and grits, which occupy 
much the same place in the general series as the millstone 
grit of England ; " and in calling this group, as he does, 
the " representative of the millstone grit," Sir R. Murchi- 
son clearly shows that he thinks likeness of mineral compo- 
sition some evidence of equivalence in time, even at that 
great distance. Nay, on the flanks of the Andes and in 
the United States, such similarities are looked for, and con- 
sidered as significant of certain ages. Not that Sir R. Mur 
chison contends theoretically for this relation between litho 
logical character and date. For on the page from whicl- 
we have just quoted (Siluria, p. 387), he says, that "whilst 
the soft Lower Silurian clays and sands of St. Petersburg 
have their equivalents in the hard schists and quartz rocks 
with gold veins in the heart of the Ural mountains, the 
equally soft red and green Devonian marls of the Valdai 
Hills are represented on the western flank of that chain, by 
hard, contorted, and fractured limestones." But these, 
and other such admissions, seem to go for little. Whilst 
himself asserting that the Potsdam-sandstone of North 
America, the Lingula-flags of England, and the alum-slates 
of Scandinavia are of the same period — while fully aware 
that among the Silurian formations of Wales, there are 
oolitic strata like those of secondary age ; yet is his reason ■ 
nig more or less coloured by the assumption, that forma- 
tions of like qualities probably belong to the same era. la 
it not manifest, then, that the exploded hypothesis of Wer. 
ner continues to influence geological speculation? 



ASSUMED UNIVERSALITY OE STEATIEIED GKOUPS. 339 

"Bat," it will perhaps be said, "though individual 
strata are not continuous over large areas, yet systems of 
strata are. Though within a few miles the same bed grad- 
ually passes from clay into sand, or thins out and disap- 
pears, yet the group of strata to which it belongs does not 
do so ; but maintains in remote regions the same relations 
to other groups." 

This is the generally-current belief. On this assump- 
tion the received geological classifications appear to be 
framed. The Silurian system, the Devonian system, the 
Carboniferous system, etc., are set down in our boohs as 
groups of formations which everywhere succeed each other 
in a given order ; and are severally everywhere of the same 
age. Though it may not be asserted that these successive 
systems are universal ; yet it seems to be tacitly assumed 
that they are so. In North and South America, in Asia, 
in Australia, sets of strata are assimilated to one or other 
of these groups ; and their possession of certain mineral 
characters and a certain order of superposition are among 
the reasons assigned for so assimilating them. Though, 
probably, no competent geologist would contend that the 
European classification of strata is applicable to the globe 
as a whole ; yet most, if not all geologists, write as though 
it were so. Among readers of works on Geology, nine out 
ten carry away the impression that the divisions, Primary, 
Secondary and Tertiary, are of absolute and uniform appli- 
cation ; that these great divisions are separable into subdi- 
visions, each of which is definitely distinguishable from the 
rest, and is everywhere recognizable by its characters as 
such or such ; and that in all parts of the Earth, these 
minor systems severally began and ended at the same time. 
When they meet with the term " carboniferous era," they 
take for granted that it was an era universally carbonife- 
rous — that it was, what Hugh Miller indeed actually de- 
scribes it, an era when the Earth bore a vegetation far 



340 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

more luxuriant than it has since done ; and were they in 
any of our colonies to meet with a coal-bed, they would 
conclude at, as a matter of course, it was of the same 
age as the English coal-beds. 

Now this belief that geologic " systems " are universal, 
is quite as untenable as the other. It is just as absurd 
when considered a priori / and it is equally inconsistent 
with the facts. Though some series of strata classed to- 
gether as Oolite, may range over a wider district than any 
one stratum of the series ; yet we have but to ask what 
were the circumstances of its deposit, to see that the Oolitic 
series, like one of its individual strata, must be of local 
origin ; and that there is not likely to be anywhere else, a 
series that exactly corresponds, either in its characters or 
in its commencement and termination. For the formation 
of such a series implies an area of subsidence, in which its 
component beds were thrown down. Every area of sub- 
sidence is necessarily limited ; and to suppose that there 
exist elsewhere groups of beds completely answering to 
those known as Oolite, is to suppose that, in contempora- 
neous areas of subsidence, like processes were going on. 
There is no reason to suppose this ; but every reason to 
suppose the reverse. That in contemporaneous areas of 
subsidence throughout the globe, the conditions would 
cause the formation of Oolite, or anything like it, is an as- 
sumption which no modern geologist would openly make : 
he would say that the equivalent series of beds found else- 
where, would very likely be of dissimilar mineral charac- 
ter. 

Moreover, in these contemporaneous areas of subsi- 
dence, the phenomena going on would not only be more or 
less different in kind ; but in no two cases would they be 
likely to agree in their commencements and terminations. 
The probabilities are greatly against separate portions of 
«,he Earth's surface beginning to subside at the same time, 



GEOLOGIC SYSTEMS NOT UNIVERSAL. 341 

and ceasing to subside at the same time — a coincidence 
which alone could produce equivalent groups of strata. 
Subsidences in different places begin and end with utter 
irregularity ; and hence the groups of strata thrown down 
in them can but rarely correspond. Measured against each 
other in time, their limits will disagree. They will refuse 
to fit into any scheme of definite divisions. On turning to 
the evidence, we find that it daily tends more and more to 
justify these a priori positions. Take, as an example, the 
Old Red Sandstone system. In the north of England this 
is represented by a single stratum of conglomerate. In 
Herefordshire, Worcestershire, and Shropshire, it expands 
into a series of strata from eight to ten thousand feet thick, 
made up of conglomerates, red, green, and white sand- 
stones, red, green, and spotted marls, and concretionary 
limestones. To the south-west, as between Caermarthen 
and Pembroke, these Old Red Sandstone strata exhibit 
considerable lithological changes ; and there is an absence 
of fossil fishes. On the other side of the Bristol Channel, 
they display further changes in mineral characters and re- 
mains. While in South Devon and Cornwall, the equiva- 
lent strata, consisting chiefly of slates, schists, and lime- 
stones, are so wholly different, that they were for a long 
time classed as Silurian. When we thus see that in certain 
directions the whole group of deposits thins out, and that 
its mineral characters as well as its fossils change within 
moderate distances ; does it not become clear that the 
whole group of deposits was a local one ? And when we 
find, in other regions, formations analogous to these Old 
Red Sandstone or Devonian formations ; is it certain — is it 
even probable — that they severally began and ended at the 
same time with them ? Should it not require overwhelm- 
ing evidence to make us believe as much ? 

Yet so strongly is geological speculation swayed by the 
tendency to regard the phenomena as general instead of 



3i:2 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

local, that even those most on their guard against it seem 
unable to escape its influence. At page 158 of his Princi- 
ples of Geology, Sir Charles Lyell says : — 

" A group of red marl and red sandstone, containing salt and 
gypsum, being interposed in England between the Lias and tbe 
Goal, all other red marls and sandstones, associated some of them 
with salt, and others with gypsum, and occurring not only in dif- 
ferent parts of Europe, but in North America, Peru, India, the 
salt deserts of Asia, those of Africa — in a word, in every quarter 
of the globe, were referred to one and the same period. . . . 
. . It was in vain to urge as an objection the improbability of 
the hypothesis which implies that all the moving waters on the 
globe were once simultaneously charged with sediment of a red 
colour. But the rashness of pretending to identify, in age, all the 
red sandstones and marls in question, has at length been suffi- 
ciently exposed, by the discovery that, even in Europe, they be- 
long decidedly to many different epochs." 

Nevertheless, while in this and numerous passages of 
like implication, Sir C. Lyell protests against the bias here 
illusti'ated, he seems himself not completely free from it. 
Though he utterly rejects the old hypothesis that all over 
the Earth the same continuous strata lie upon each other 
in regular order, like the coats of an onion, he still writes 
as though geologic " systems " do thus succeed each other. 
A reader of his Manual would certainly suppose him to 
believe, that the Primary epoch ended, and the Secondary 
epoch commenced, all over the world at the same time — 
that these terms really correspond to distinct universal eras 
in Nature. When he assumes, as he does, that the divis- 
ion between Cambrian and Lower Silurian in America, an- 
swers chronologically to the division between Cambrian 
and Lower Silurian in Wales — when he takes for granted 
+ .hat the partings of Lower from Middle Silurian, and of 
Middle Silurian from Upper, in the one region, are of the 
same dates as tie like partings in the other region ; does it 



CONTINUED INFLUENCE OF EXPLODED VIEWS. 343 

Dot seem that he believes geologic "systems" to be uni- 
versal, in the sense that their separations were in all places 
contemporaneous ? Though he would, doubtless, disown 
this as an article of faith, is not his thinking unconsciously 
influenced by it ? Must we not say that though the onion- 
coat hypothesis is dead, its spirit is traceable, under a trans- 
cendental form, even in the conclusions of its antagonists ? 

Let us now consider another leading geological doc- 
trine, introduced to us by the cases just mentioned. We 
mean the doctrine that strata of the same age contain like 
fossils ; and that, therefore, the age and relative position of 
any stratum may be known by its fossils. While the the- 
ory that strata of like mineral characters were everywhere 
deposited simultaneously, has been ostensibly abandoned, 
there has been accepted the theory that in each geologic 
epoch similar plants and animals existed everywhere ; and 
that, therefore, the epoch to which any formation belongs 
may be known by the organic remains contained in the 
formation. Though, perhaps, no leading geologist would 
openly commit himself to an unqualified assertion of this 
theory, yet it is tacitly assumed in current geological rea- 
soning. 

This theory, however, is scarcely more tenable than the 
other. It cannot be concluded with any certainty, that 
formations in which similar organic remains are found, were 
of contemporaneous origin ; nor can it be safely concluded 
that strata containing different organic remains are of dif- 
ferent ages. To most readers these will be startling propo- 
sitions ; but they are fully admitted by the highest author- 
ities. Sir Charles Lyell confesses that the test of organic 
remains must be used " under very much the same restric- 
tions as the test of mineral composition." Sir Henry de la 
Beche, who variously illustrates this truth, gives, as one 
instance, the great incongruity there must be between the 



344 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

fossils of our caiboniferous rocks and those of the marine 
strata deposited at the same period. But though, in thfl 
abstract, the danger of basing positive conclusions on evi- 
dence derived from fossils, is clearly recognized ; yet, in the 
concrete, this danger is generally disregarded. The estab- 
lished conclusions respecting the ages of strata, take but 
little note of it ; and by some geologists it seems altogether 
ignored. Throughout his Siluria, Sir R. Murchison habit- 
ually assumes that the same, or kindred, species, lived in 
all parts of the Earth at the same time. In Russia, in Bo- 
hemia, in the United States, in South America, strata are 
classed as belonging to this or that part of the Silurian sys- 
tem, because of the similar fossils contained in them — are 
concluded to be everywhere contemporaneous if they en- 
close a proportion of identical or allied forms. In Russia 
the relative position of a stratum is inferred from the fact 
that, along with some Wenlock forms, it yields the Penta- 
merus oblongus. Certain crustaceans called Eurypteri, be- 
ing characteristic of the Upper Ludlow rock, it is remarked 
that " large Eurypteri occur in a so-called black grey-wacke 
slate in Westmoreland, in Oneida County, New York, 
which will probably be found to be on the parallel \>f the 
Upper Ludlow rock : " in which word " probably," we see 
both how dominant is this belief of universal distribution 
of similar creatures at the same period, and how apt this 
belief is to make its own proof, by raising the expectation 
that the ages are identical when the forms are alike. Be- 
sides thus interpreting the formations of Russia, England, 
and America, Sir R. Murchison thus interprets those of the 
antipodes. Fossils from Victoria Colony, he agrees with 
the Government-surveyor in classing as of Lower Silurian 
or Llandovery age : that is, he takes for granted that when 
eertain crustaceans and mollusks were living in Wales, cer- 
tain similar crustaceans and mollusks were living in Au* 
tralia 



THE TEST OF ORGANIC REMAINS. 345 

Yet the improbability of this assumption may be readily 
shown from Sir R. Murchison's own facts. If, as he points 
out, the crustacean fossils of the uppermost Silurian rocks 
in Lanarkshire are, " with one doubtful exception," " all 
distinct from any of the forms on the same horizon in Eng- 
land ; " how can it be fairly presumed that the forms exist- 
ing on the other side of the Earth during the Silurian 
period, were nearly allied to those existing here ? Not 
only, indeed, do Sir R. Murchison's conclusions tacitly as- 
sume this doctrine of universal distribution, but he distinctly 
enunciates it. "The mere presence of a graptolite," he 
says, " will at once decide that the enclosing rock is Silu- 
rian ; " and he says this, notwithstanding repeated warnings 
against such generalizations. During the progress of Geolo- 
gy, it has over and over again happened that a particular 
fossil, long considered characteristic of a particular forma- 
tion, has been afterwards discovered in other formations. 
Until some twelve years ago, Goniatites had not been found 
lower than the Devonian rocks; but now, in Bohemia, they 
have been found in rocks classed as Silurian. Quite re- 
cently, the Orthoceras, previously supposed to be a type 
exclusively palaeozoic, has been detected along with meso 
zoic Ammonites and Belemnites. Yet hosts of such experi- 
ences fail to extinguish the assumption, that the age of a 
stratum may be determined by the occurrence in it of a 
single fossil form. 

Nay, this assumption survives evidence of even a still 
more destructive kind. Referring to the Silurian system 
in Western Ireland, Sir R. Murchison says, " in the beds 
near Maatn, Professor Nicol and myself collected remains, 
some of which would be considered Lower, and others 
Upper, Silurian ; " and he then names sundry fossils which, 
in England, belong to the summit of the Ludlow rocks, or 
highest Silurian strata ; " some, which elsewhere are known 
only in rocks of Llandovery age," that is, of middle Silu- 



346 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

rian age ; and some, only before known in Lower Siluriar 
strata, not far above the most ancient fossiliferous beds 
Now what do these facts prove ? Clearly, they prove that 
species which in Wales are separated by strata more than 
twenty thousand feet deep, and therefore seem to belong 
to periods far more remote from each other, were really 
coexistent. They prove that the moUusks and orinoids 
held characteristic of early Silurian strata, and sujyposed to 
have become extinct long before the moUusks and crinoids 
of the later Silurian strata came into existence, were really 
nourishing at the same time with these last; and that these 
last possibly date back to as eai'ly a period as the first. 
They prove that not only the mineral characters of sedi- 
mentary formations, but also the collections of organic 
forms they contain, depend, to a great extent, on local cir- 
cumstances. They prove that the fossils met with in any 
series of strata, cannot be taken as representing anything 
like the whole Flora and Fauna of the period they belong 
to. In brief, they throw great doubt upon numerous geo- 
logical generalizations. 

Notwithstanding facts like these, and notwithstanding 
his avowed opinion that the test of organic remains must be 
used " under very much the same restrictions as the test of 
mineral composition," Sir Charles Lyell, too, bases positive 
conclusions on this test : even where the community of 
fossils is slight and the distance great. Having decided 
that in various places in Europe, middle Eocene strata are 
distinguished by nummulites ; he infers, without any other 
assigned evidence, that wherever nummulites are found — 
in Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, in Persia, Scinde, Cutch, East- 
ern Bengal, and the frontiers of China — the containing for- 
mation is middle Eocene. And from this inference he 
draws the following important corollary : — 

' When we have once arrived at the oonviction that the 



ltell's conclusions unwakkanted. 347 

aummulitic formation occupies a middle place in the Eocene 
series, we are struck with the comparatively modern date to 
which some of the greatest revolutions in the physical geography 
of Europe, Asia, and northern Africa must be referred. All 
the mountain chains, such as the Alps, Pyrenees, Carpathians, 
and Himalayas, into the composition of whose central and lof- 
tiest parts the nummulitic strata enter bodily, could have had no 
existence till after the middle Eocene period." — Manual, p. 232. 

A still more marked case follows on the next page. 
Because a certain bed at Claiborne in Alabama, which con- 
tains "four hundred species of marine shells," includes 
among them the Cardita planicosta, " and some others 
.dentical with European species, or very nearly allied to 
them," Sir C. Lyell says it is " highly probable the Clai- 
borne beds agree in age with the central or Bracklesham 
group of England." When we find contemporaneity sup- 
posed on the strength of a community no greater than that 
which sometimes exists between strata of widely-differeiit 
ages in the same country, it seems very much as though 
the above-quoted caution had been forgotten. It appears 
to be assumed for the occasion, that species which had a 
wide range in space had a narrow range in time ; which is 
the reverse of the fact. The tendency to systematize over- 
rides the evidence, and thrusts Nature into a formula too 
rigid to fit her endless variety. 

" But," it may be urged, " surely, when in different 
places the order of superposition, the mineral characters, 
and the fossils, agree, it may be safely concluded that the 
formations thus corresponding are equivalents in time. If, 
for example, the United States display the same succes- 
sion of Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous systems, lith- 
ologically similar, and characterized by like fossils, it is a 
fair inference that these groups of strata were severally 
deposited in America at the same periods that they were 
deposited here." 



348 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGT. 

On this position, which seems a strong one, we have, in 
the first place, to remark, that the evidence of correspond- 
ence is always more or less suspicious. We have already 
adverted to the several " idols " — if we may use Baeou's 
metaphor — to which geologists unconsciously sacrifice, 
when interpreting the structures of unexplored regions. 
Carrying with them the classification of strata existing in 
Europe, and assuming that groups of strata in other parts 
of the world must answer to some of the groups of strata 
known here, they are necessarily prone to assert parallel- 
ism on insufficient evidence. They scarcely entertain the 
previous question, whether the formations they are examin- 
ing have or have not any European equivalents ; but the 
question is — with which of the European series shall they 
be classed? — with which do they most agree? — from which 
do they differ least ? And this being the mode of enquiry, 
there is apt to result great laxity of interpretation. How 
lax the interpretation really is, may be readily shown. 
When strata are discontinuous, as between Europe and 
America, no evidence can be derived from the order of 
superposition, apart from mineral characters and organic 
remains ; for, unless strata can be continuously traced, min- 
eral characters and organic remains are the only means of 
classing them as such or such. 

As to the test of mineral characters, we have seen that 
it is almost worthless ; and no modern geologist would 
dare to say it should be relied on. If the Old Red Sand- 
stone series in mid-England, differs wholly in lithological 
aspect from the equivalent series in South Devon, it is clear 
that similarities of texture and composition can have no 
weight in assimilating a system of strata in another quar- 
ter of the globe to some European system. The test of 
fossils, therefore, is the only one that remains ; and with 
how little strictness this test is applied, one case will show. 
Of forty-six species of British Devonian corals, only six 



INADEQUATE EVIDENCE OF SYNCHRONISM. 349 

occur in America ; and this, notwithstanding the wide 
range which the Anthozoa are known to have. Similarly 
of the Mollusca and Crinoidea, it appears that, while then 
are sundry genera found in America that are found here, 
there are scarcely any of the same species. And Sir 
Charles Lyell admits that " the difficulty of deciding on 
the exact parallelism of the New York subdivisions, as 
above enumerated, with the members of the European 
Devonian, is very great, so few are the species in common." 
Yet it is on the strength of community of fossils, that the 
whole Devonian series of the United States is assumed to 
be contemporaneous with the whole Devonian series of 
England. And it is partly on the ground that the Devo- 
nian of the United States corresponds in time with our De- 
vonian, that Sir Charles Lyell concludes the superjacent 
coal-measures of the two countries to be of the same age. 
Is it not, then, as we said, that the evidence in these cases 
is very suspicious ? 

Should it be replied, as it may fairly be, that this cor- 
respondence from which the synchronism of distant forma- 
tions is inferred, is not a correspondence between particu- 
lar species or particular genera, but between the general 
characters of the contained assemblages of fossils — between 
\\\q fades of the two Faunas; the rejoinder is, that though 
such correspondence is a stronger evidence of synchronism 
it is still an insufficient one. To infer synchronism from 
such correspondence, involves the postulate that through- 
out each geologic era there has habitually existed a recog- 
nizable similarity between the groups of organic forms in- 
habiting all the different parts of the Earth ; and that the 
causes which have in one part of the Earth changed the or- 
ganic forms into those which characterize the next era, have 
simultaneously acted in all other parts of the Earth, in such 
ways as to produce parallel changes of their organic forms. 
Now this is not only a large assumption to make ; but it is 



350 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

an assumption contrary to probability. The probability is, 
that the causes which have changed Faunas have been local 
rather than universal; that hence while the Faunas of 
some regions have been rapidly changing, those of othera 
have been almost quiescent ; and that when such others 
have been changed, it has been, not in such ways as to 
maintain parallelism, but in such ways as to produce diver- 
gence. 

Even supposing, however, that districts some hundreds 
of miles apart, furnished groups of strata that completely 
agreed in their order of superposition, their mineral charac- 
ters, and their fossils, we should still have inadequate proof 
of contemporaneity. For there are conditions, very likely 
to occur, under which such groups might differ widely in 
age. If there be a continent of which the strata crop out 
on the surface obliquely to the line of coast — running, say, 
west-northwest, while the coast runs east and west — it is 
clear that each group of strata will crop out on the beach 
at a particular part of the coast ; that further west the next 
group of strata will crop out on the beach ; and so continu- 
ously. As the localization of marine plants and animals is 
in a considerable degree determined by the nature of the 
rocks and their detritus, it follows that each part of this 
coast will have its more or less distinct Flora and Fauna. 
What now must result from the action of the waves in the 
course of a geologic epoch? As the sea makes slow inroads 
on the land, the place at which each group of strata crops 
out on the beach will gradually move towards the west : 
its distinctive fish, mollusks, crustaceans, and sea-weeds, 
migrating with it. Further, the detritus of each of these 
groups of strata will, as the point of outcrop moves west- 
wards, be deposited over the detritus of the group in ad- 
vance of it. And the consequence of these actions, carried 
on for one of those enormous periods required for geologic 
changes, will be that, corresponding to each eastern stratum. 



VARIETY OF STEATA NOW FORMING. 351 

there will arise a stratum far to the west which, though oc- 
cupying the same position relatively to other beds, formed 
of like materials, and containing like fossils, will yet be per 
haps a million years later in date. 

But the illegitimacy, or at any rate the great doubtful- 
ness, of many current geological inferences, is best seen 
when we contemplate terrestrial changes now going on : 
and ask how far such inferences are countenanced by them. 
If we carry out rigorously the modern method of interpret- 
ing geological phenomena, which Sir Charles Lyell has done 
so much to establish — that of referring them to causes like 
those at present in action — we cannot fail to see how im- 
probable are sundry of the received conclusions. 

Along each line of shore that is being worn aAvay by 
the waves, there are being formed mud, sand, and pebbles. 
This detritus, spread over the neighbouring sea-bottom, 
has, in each locality, a more or less special character ; de- 
termined by the nature of the strata destroyed. In the 
English Channel it is not the same as in the Irish Channel ; 
on the east coast of Ireland it is not the same as on the 
west coast; and so throughout. At the mouth of each 
great river, there is being deposited sediment differing 
more or less from that of other rivers in colour and quali- 
ty ; forming strata that are here red, there yellow, and 
elsewhere brown, grey, or dirty white. Besides which va 
rious formations, going on in deltas and along shores, there 
are some much wider and still more contrasted formations. 
At the bottom of the iEgaean Sea, there is accumulating 
a bed of Pteropod shells, which will eventually, no doubt, 
become a calcareous rock. For some hundreds of thou- 
sands of square miles, the ocean-bed between Great Britair. 
and North America, is being covered with a stratum of 
chalk ; and over large areas in the Pacific, there are going 
Dn deposits of coralline limestone. Thus, throughout the 



352 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

Earth, there are at this moment being produced an im- 
mense number of strata differing from each other in litho 
logical characters. Name at random any one part of the 
sea-bottom, and ask whether the deposit there taking place 
is like the deposit taking place at some distant part of the 
sea-bottom, and the alniost-certainly correct answer will be 
— No. The chances are not in favour of similarity, but 
very greatly against it. 

In the order of superposition of strata there is occur- 
ing a like variety. Each region of the Earth's surface has 
its special history of elevations, subsidences, periods of 
rest ; and this history in no case fits chronologically with 
the history of any other portion. River deltas are now be- 
ing thrown down on formations of quite different ages. 
While here, there has been deposited a series of beds many 
hundreds of feet thick, there has elsewhere been deposited 
but a single bed of fine mud. While one region of the 
Earth's crust, continuing for a vast epoch above the surface 
of the ocean, bears record of no changes save those result- 
ing from denudation ; another region of the Earth's crust 
gives proof of various changes of level, with their several 
resulting masses of stratified detritus. If anything is to 
be judged from current processes, we must infer, not only 
that everywhere the succession of sedimentary formations 
differs more or less from the succession elsewhere ; but also 
that in each place, there exist groups of strata to which 
many other places have no equivalents. 

With respect to the organic bodies imbedded in forma- 
tions now in progress, the like truth is equally manifest, if 
not more manifest. Even along the same coast, within 
moderate distances, the forms of life differ very considera- 
bly ; much more on coasts that are remote from each other. 
Again, dissimilar creatures that are living together near the 
same shore, do not leave their remains in the same beds of 
sediment. For instance, at the bottom of the Adriatic. 



MODERN DEPOSITS OF ORGANIC REMAINS. 353 

where the prevailing currents cause the deposits to he here 
of mud, and there of calcareous matter, it is proved that 
different species of co-existing shells are "being buried in 
these respective formations. On our own coasts, the ma. 
rine remains found a few miles from shore, in banks where 
fish congregate, are different from those found close to the 
shore, where only littoral species flourish. A large propor- 
tion of aquatic creatures have structures that do not admit 
of fossilization ; while of the rest, the great majority are 
destroyed, when dead, by the various kinds of scavengers 
that creep among the rocks and weeds. So that no one 
deposit near our shores can contain anything like a true 
representation of the Fauna of the surrounding sea ; much 
less of the co-existing Faunas of other seas in the same lat- 
itude ; and still less of the Faunas of seas in distant lati- 
tudes. Were it not that the assertion seems needful, it 
would be almost absurd to say, that the organic remains 
now being buried in the Dogger Bank, can tell us next 
to nothing about the fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and corals 
that are being buried in the Bay of Bengal. 

Still stronger is the argument in the case of terrestrial 
life. With more numerous and greater contrasts between 
the plants and animals of remote places, there is a far more 
imperfect registry of them. Schouw marks out on the Earth 
more than twenty botanical regions, occupied by groups of 
forms so far distinct from each other, that, if fossilized, geo- 
logists would scarcely be disposed to refer them all to the 
same period. Of Faunas, the Arctic differs from the Tem- 
perate ; the Temperate from the Tropical ; and the South 
Temperate from the North Temperate. Nay, in the South 
Temperate Zone itself, the two regions of South Africa and 
South America are unlike in their mammals, birds, reptiles, 
fishes, mollusks, insects. The shells and bones now lying at 
the bottoms of lakes and estuaries in these several regions, 
have certainly not that similarity which is usually looked 



354 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

for in those of contemporaneous strata ; and the recent 
forms exhumed in any one of these regions would very un- 
truly represent the present Flora and Fauna of the Earth. 
In conformity with the current style of geological reason- 
ing, an exhaustive examination of deposits in the Arctic cir- 
cle, might be held to prove that though at this period 
there were sundry mammals existing, there were no reptiles ; 
while the absence of mammals in the deposits of the Gala- 
pagos Archipelago, where there are plenty of reptiles, might 
be held to prove the reverse. And at the same time, from 
the formations extending for two thousand miles along the 
great barrier-reef of Australia — formations in which are 
imbedded nothing but corals, echinoderms, mollusks, crus- 
taceans, and fish, along with an occasional turtle, or bird, 
or cetacean, it might be inferred that there lived in our 
epoch neither terrestrial reptiles nor terrestrial mammals. 

The mention of Australia, indeed, suggests an illustra- 
tion which, even alone, would amply prove our case. The 
Fauna of this region differs widely from any that is found 
elsewhere. On land all the indigenous mammals, except 
bats, belong to the lowest, or implacental division ; and the 
insects are singularly different from those found elsewhere. 
The surrounding seas contain numerous forms that are more 
or less strange ; and among the fish there exists a species 
of shark, which is the only living representative of a genus 
that flourished in early geologic epochs. If, now, the mod- 
ern fossiliferous deposits of Australia were to be examined 
by one ignorant of the existing Australian Fauna ; and if he 
were to reason in the usual manner ; he would be very un- 
likely to class these deposits with those of the present time. 
How, then, can we place confidence in the tacit assumption 
that certain formations in remote parts of the Earth are 
referable to the same period, because the organic remains 
contained in them display a certain community of charac- 
ter ? or that certain others are referable to different periods, 
because the fades of their Faunas are different ? 



REASONING IN A CIRCLE. 355 

" But," it will be replied, " in past eras the same, or 
similar, organic forms were more widely distributed than 
now." It may be so ; but the evidence adduced by no 
means proves it. The argument by which this conclusion 
is reached, runs a risk of being quoted as an example of 
reasoning in a circle. As already pointed out, between 
formations in remote regions there is no means of ascertain- 
ing equivalence but by fossils. If, then, the contempora- 
neity of remote formations is concluded from the likeness 
of their fossils ; how can it be said that similar plants and 
animals were once more widely distributed, because they 
are found in contemporaneous strata in remote regions ? 
Is not the fallacy manifest ? Even supposing there were 
no such fatal objection as this, the evidence commonly as- 
signed would still be insufficient. For we must bear in 
mind that the community of organic remains commonly 
thought sufficient for inferring correspondence in time, is a 
very imperfect community. When the compared sedimen- 
tary beds are far apart, it is scarcely expected that there 
w'll be many species common to the two : it is enough if 
there be discovered a considerable number of common gen- 
era. Now had it been proved that, throughout geologic 
time, each genus lived but for a short period — a period 
measured by a single group of strata — something might be 
inferred. But what if we learn that many of the same 
genera continued to exist throughout enormous epochs, 
measured by several vast systems of strata ? " Among 
molluscs, the genera Avicida, Ifodiola, Terebratula, Lin- 
gular and Orbicida, are found from the Silurian rocks up- 
wards to the present day." If, then, between the lowest 
fossiliferous formations and the most recent, there exists 
this degree of community ; must we not infer that there 
will probably often exist a degree of community between 
strata that are far from contemporaneous ? 

Thus the reasoning from which it is concluded, that 



35 G ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

similar organic forms were once more widely spread, is 
doubly fallacious ; and, consequently, the classifications of 
foreign strata based on this conclusion are untrustworthy. 
Judging from the present distribution of life, we can 
scarcely expect to find similar remains in geographically 
remote strata of the same age ; and where, between the 
fossils of geographically remote strata, we do find much 
similarity, it is probably often due rather to likeness of con- 
ditions than to contemporaneity. If from causes and ef- 
fects such as we now witness, we reason back to the causes 
and efFects of past epochs, we discover inadequate warrant 
for sundry of the received doctrines. Seeing, as we do, 
that in large areas of the Pacific this is a period character- 
ized by abundance of corals ; that in the North Atlantic it 
is a period in which a great chalk-deposit is being formed ; 
and that in the valley of the Mississippi it is a period of 
new coal-basins — seeing also, as we do, that in one exten- 
sive continent this is peculiarly an era of implacental mam- 
mals, and that in another extensive continent it is peculiarly 
an era of placental mammals ; we have good reason to hes- 
itate before accepting these sweeping generalizations which 
are based on a cursory examination of strata occupying but 
a tenth part of the Earth's surface. 

At the outset, this article was to have been a review of 
the works of Hugh Miller ; but it has grown into some- 
thing much more general. Nevertheless, the remaining 
two doctrines which we propose to criticise, may be con- 
veniently treated in connection with his name, as that of 
one who fully committed himself to them. And first, a few 
words with regard to his position. 

That he was a man whose life was one of meritorious 
achievement, every one knows. That he was a diligent and 
successful working geologist, scarcely needs saying. That 
with indomitable perseverance he struggled up from ob- 



HUGH MILLER AS A GEOLOGIST. 357 

scurity to a place in the world of literature and science, 
shows him to have been highly endowed in character and 
intelligence. And that he had a remarkable power of pre- 
senting his facts and arguments in an attractive form, a 
glance at any of his books will quickly prove. By all 
means, let us respect him as a man of activity and sagacity, 
joined with a large amount of poetry. But while saying 
this we must add, that his reputation stands by no means 
so high in the scientific world as in the world at large. 
Partly from the fact that our Scotch neighbours are in the 
habit of blowing the trumpet rather loudly before their 
notabilities — partly because the charming style in which his 
books are written has gained him a large circle of readers 
■ — partly, perhaps, through a praiseworthy sympathy with 
him as a self-made man ; Hugh Miller has met with an 
amount of applause which, little as we wish to diminish it, 
must not be allowed to blind the public to his defects as a 
man of science. 

The truth is, he was so far committed to a foregone 
conclusion, that he could not become a philosophical geolo- 
gist. He might be aptly described as a theologian study- 
ing geology. The dominant idea with which he wrote, 
may be seen in the titles of his books — Law versus Miracle, 
— Footprints of the Creator, — The Testimony of the 
Hocks. Regarding geological facts as evidence for or 
against certain religious conclusions, it was scarcely possi- 
ble for him to deal with geological facts impartially. His 
ruling aim was to disprove the Development Hypothesis, 
the assumed implications of which were repugnant to him ; 
and in proportion to the strength of his feeling, was the 
one-sidedness of his reasoning. He admitted that " God 
might as certainly have originated the species by a law of 
development, as he maintains it by a law of development ; 
the existence of a First Great Cause is as perfectly compat- 
ible with the one scheme as with the other." Neverthe* 



358 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

less, he considered the hypothesis at variance with Chri» 
tianity; and therefore combated with it. He apparently 
overlooked the fact that the doctrines of geology in gen- 
eral, as held by himself, had been rejected by many on sinv 
ilar grounds ; and that he had himself been repeatedly at- 
tacked for his anti-Christian teachings. He seems not to 
have perceived that, just as his antagonists were wrong in 
condemning as irreligious, theories which he saw were not 
irreligious ; so might he be wrong in condemning, on like 
grounds, the Theory of Evolution. In brief, he fell short 
of that highest faith, which knows that all truths must har- 
monize ; and which is, therefore, content trustfully to fol- 
low the evidence whithersoever it leads. 

Of course it is impossible to criticize his works without 
entering on this great question to which he chiefly devoted 
himself. The two remaining doctrines to be here discussed, 
bear directly on this question. ; and, as above said, we pro- 
pose to treat them in connection with Hugh Miller's name, 
because, throughout his reasonings, he assumes their truth. 
Let it not be supposed, however, that we shall aim to prove 
what he has aimed to disprove. While we purpose show- 
ing that his arguments against the Development Hypothe- 
sis are based on invalid assumptions ; we do not purpose 
showing that the opposing arguments are based on valid 
assumptions. We hope to make it apparent that the geo- 
logical evidence at present obtained, is insufficient for either 
side; further, that there seems little probability of sufficient 
evidence ever being obtained ; and that if the question is 
eventually decided, it must be decided on other than geo- 
logical data. 

The first of the current doctrines to which we have just 
referred, is, that there occur in the records of former life 
on our planet, certain great blanks — that though, generally, 
the succession of fossil forms is tolerably continuous, yet 



BKEAK8 IN THE COUESE OF TEEBESTEIAL LIFE. 359 

shat at two places there occur wide gaps in the series 
whence it is inferred that, on at least two occasions, the 
previously existing inhabitants of the Earth were almost 
wholly destroyed, and a different class of inhabitants cre- 
ated. Comparing the general life on the Earth to a thread, 
Hugh Miller says : — 

" It is continuous from the present time up to the commence- 
ment of the Tertiary period ; and then so abrupt a break occurs, 
that, with the exception of the microscopic diatomaceaa to which 
I last evening referred, and of one shell and one coral, not a sin- 
gle species crossed the gap. On its further or remoter side, how- 
ever, where the Secondary division closes, the intermingling of 
species again begins, and runs on till the commencement of this 
great Secondary division; and then, just where the Palfeozoic di- 
vision closes, we find another abrupt break, crossed, if crossed at 
all, — for there still exists some doubt on the snbject, — by but two 
species of plant." 

These breaks are considered to imply actual new crea- 
tions on the surface of our planet ; not only by Hugh Mil- 
ler, but by the majority of geologists. And the terms 
Palaeozoic, Mesozoic, and Cainozoic, are used to indicate 
these three successive systems of life. It is true that some 
accept this belief with caution : knowing how geologic 
research has been all along tending to fill up what were 
once thought wide breaks. Sir Charles Lyell points out 
that " the hiatus which exists in Great Britain between the 
fossils of the Lias and these of the Magnesian Limestone, 
is supplied in Germany by the rich fauna and flora of the 
Muschelkalk, Keuper, and Bunter Sandstein, which we 
know to be of a date precisely intermediate." Again he 
remarks that " until lately the fossils of the coal-measures 
were separated from those of the antecedent Silurian group 
by a very abrupt and decided line of demarcation ; buc 
recent discoveries have brought to light in Devonshire, 
Belgium, the Eifel, and Westphalia, the remains of a fauna 
17 



360 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

of an intervening period." And once more, " we have also 
in like manner had some success of late years in diminish- 
ing the hiatus which still separates the Cretaceous and 
Eocene periods in Europe." To wbich let us add that 
since Hugh Miller penned the passage above quoted, the 
second of the great gaps he refers to has been very consid- 
erably narrowed by the discovery of strata containing Pa- 
laeozoic genera and Mesozoic genera intermingled. Never- 
theless, the occurrence of two great revolutions in the 
Earth's Flora and Fauna appears still to be held by many ; 
and geologic nomenclature habitually assumes it. \ 

Before seeking a solution of these phenomena, let us 
glance at the several minor causes that produce breaks in 
the geological succession of organic forms : taking first, 
the more general ones which modify climate, and, there- 
fore, the distribution of life. Among these may be noted 
one which has not, we believe, been named by writers on 
the subject. We mean that resulting from a certain slow 
astronomic rhythm, by which the northern and southern 
hemispheres are alternately subject to greater extremes of 
temperature. In consequence of the slight ellipticity of its 
orbit, the Earth's distance from the sun varies to the extent 
of some 3,000,000 of miles. At present, the aphelion oc- 
curs at the time of our northern summer ; and the perihe- 
lion during the summer of the southern hemisphere. In 
consequence, however, of that slow movement of the 
Earth's axis which produces the precession of the equinox- 
es, this state of things will in time be reversed : the Earth 
will be nearest to the sun during the summer of the north- 
ern hemisphere, and furthest from it during the southern 
summer or northern winter. The period required to com- 
plete the slow movement producing these changes, is nearly 
26,000 years; and were there no modifying process, the 
two hemispheres would alternately experience this coinci- 
dence of summer with the least distance from the sun, dur 



ASTRONOMIC CAUSES OF CLIMATIC CHANGES. 361 

mg a period of 13,000 years. But there is also a still 
slower change in the direction of the axis major of the 
Earth's orbit ; from which it results that the alternation we 
have described is completed in about 21,000 years. That 
is to say, if at a given time the Earth is nearest to the sun 
J,t our mid-summer, and furthest from the sun at our mid- 
winter: then, in 10,500 yeai-s afterwards, it will be furthest 
from the sun at our mid-summer, and nearest at our mid- 
winter. 

Now the difference between the distances from the sun 
at the two extremes of this alternation, amounts to one- 
thirtieth ; and hence, the difference between the quantities 
of heat received from the sun on a summer's day under 
these opposite conditions amounts to one-fifteenth. Esti- 
mating this, not with reference to the zero of our thermome- 
ters, but with reference to the temperature of the celestial 
spaces, Sir John Herschel calculates " 23° Fahrenheit as 
the least variation of temperature under such circumstances 
which can reasonably be attributed to the actual variation 
of the sun's distance." Thus, then, each hemisphere has 
at a certain epoch, a short summer of extreme heat, fol- 
lowed by a long and very cold winter. Through the slow 
change in the direction of the Earth's axis, these extremes 
are gradually mitigated. And at the end of 10,500 years, 
there is reached the opposite state — a long and moderate 
summer, with a short and mild winter. At present, in con- 
sequence of the predominance of sea in the southern hem- 
isphere, the extremes to which its astronomical conditions 
subject it, are much ameliorated ; while the great propor- 
tion of land in the northern hemisphere, tends to exagge- 
rate such contrast as now exists in it between winter and 
summer : whence it results that the climates of the two 
hemispheres are not widely unlike. But 10,000 years hence, 
the northern hemisphere will undergo annual variations of 
temperature far more marked than now. 



362 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

In the last edition of his Outlines of Asti'o?iomy, Six 
John Herschel recognizes this as an element in geological 
processes : regarding it as possibly a part-cause of those 
climatic changes indicated by the records of the Earth's 
past. That it has had much to do. with the larger changes 
of climate of which we have evidence, seems unlikely, since 
there is reason to think that these have been far slower and 
more lasting ; but that it must have entailed a rhythmical 
exaggeration and mitigation of the climates otherwise pro- 
duced, seems beyond question. And it seems also beyond 
question that there must have been a consequent rhythmi- 
cal change in the distribution of organisms — a rhythmical 
change to which we here wish to draw attention, as one 
cause of minor breaks in the succession of fossil remains. 
Each species of plant and animal, has certain limits of heat 
and cold within which only it can exist ; and these limits 
in a great degree determine its geographical position. It 
will not spread north of a certain latitude, because it can- 
not bear a more northern winter, nor south of a certain 
latitude, because the summer heat is too great ; or else it 
is indirectly restrained from spreading further by the effect 
of temperature on the humidity of the air, or on the distri- 
bution of the organisms it lives upon. 

But now, what will result from a slow alteration of cli- 
mate, produced as above described ? Supposing the pe- 
riod we set out from is that in which the contrast of seasons 
is least marked, it is manifest that during the progress to- 
wards the period of the most violent contrast, each species 
of plant and animal will gradually change its limits of dis- 
tribution — will be driven back, here by the winter's increas- 
ing cold, and there by the summer's increasing heat — will 
retire into those localities that are still fit for it. Thus dur- 
ing 10,000 yeai*s, each species will ebb away from certain 
regions it was inhabiting; and during the succeeding 
10,000 years will flow back into those regions. From the 



EFFECTS OF THE LONG CLIMATIC KHYTHM. 363 

strata there forming, its remains will disappear ; they will 
be absent from some of the supposed strata ; and will be 
found in strata higher up. But in what shapes will they 
re-appear ? Exposed during the 21,000 years of their slow 
recession and their slow return, to changing conditions of 
life, they are likely to have undergone modifications ; and 
will probably re-appear with slight differences of constitu- 
tion and perhaps of form — will be new varieties or perhaps 
new sub-species. 

To this cause of minor breaks in the succession of or- 
ganic forms — a cause on which we have dwelt because it 
has not been taken into account — we must add sundry oth- 
ers. Besides these periodically-recurring alterations of 
climate, there are the irregular ones produced by re-distri- 
butions of land and sea ; and these, sometimes less, some- 
times greater, in degree, than the rhythmical changes, must, 
like them, cause in each region the ebb and flow of species ; 
and consequent breaks, small or large as the case may be, 
in the palaBontological series. Other and more special geo- 
logical changes must produce other and more local blanks 
in the succession of fossils. By some inland elevation the 
natural drainage of a continent is modified ; and instead 
of the sediment it previously brought down to the sea, a 
great river begins to bring down sediment unfavourable to 
various plants and animals living in its delta : wherefore 
these disappear from the locality, perhaps to re-appear in a 
changed form after a long epoch. Upheavals or subsiden- 
ces of shores or sea-bottoms, involving deviations of marine 
currents, must remove the habitats of many species to 
which such currents are salutary or injurious ; and further, 
this re-distribution of currents must alter the places of sed- 
imentary deposits, and so stop the burying of organic re- 
mains in some localities, and commence it in others. Had 
we space, many more such causes of blanks in our palaeon- 
toloarical records mio-ht be added. But it is needless here 



364 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

to enumerate them. They are admirably explained and il 
lustrated in Sir Charles Ly ell's Principles of Geology. 

Now, if these minor revolutions of the Earth's surface 
produce minor breaks in the series of fossilized remains ; 
/ must not great revolutions pi-oduce great breaks ? If a lo- 
cal upheaval or subsidence causes throughout its small area 
the absence of some links in the chain of fossil forms ; does 
it not follow that an upheaval or subsidence extending over 
a large part of the Earth's surface, must cause the absence 
of a great number of such links throughout a very wide 
area ? 

When during a long epoch a continent, slowly subsiding, 
gives place to a far-spreading ocean some miles in depth, at 
the bottom of which no deposits from rivers or abraded 
shores can be thrown down ; and when, after some enor- 
mous period, this ocean- bottom is gradually elevated and 
becomes the site of new strata ; it is clear that the fossils 
contained in these new strata are likely to have but little 
in common with the fossils of the strata below them. Take, 
in illustration, the case of the North Atlantic. We have 
already named the fact that between this country and the 
United States, the ocean-bottom is being covered with a 
deposit of chalk — a deposit that has been forming, proba- 
bly, ever since there occurred that great depression of the 
Earth's crust from which the Atlantic resulted in remote 
geologic times. This chalk, consists of the minute shells of 
Foraminifera, sprinkled with remains of small Entomostra- 
ca, and probably a few Pteropod-shells : though the sound- 
ing lines have not yet brought up any of these last. Thus, 
in so far as all high forms of life are concerned, this new 
chalk-formation must be a blank. At rare intervals, per- 
haps, a polar bear drifted on an iceberg, may have its bones 
scattered over the bed ; or a dead, decaying whale may 
similarly leave traces. But such remains must be so rare, 
that this new chalk-formation, if visible, might be examined 



GAPS CONSISTENT WITH CONTINUOUS LIFE. 365 

for a century before any of them were disclosed. If now, 
some millions of years hence, the Atlantic-bed should be 
raised, and estuary or shore deposits laid upon it, these de- 
posits would contain remains of a Flora and Fauna so dis- 
tinct from everything below them, as to appear like a new 
creation. 

Thus, along with continuity of life on the Earth's sur- 
face, there not only may be, but there must be, great gaps, 
in the series of fossils ; and hence these gaps are no evi- 
dence against the doctrine of Evolution. 

One other current assumption remains to be criticized ; 
and it is the one on which, more than on any other, de- 
pends the view taken respecting the question of develop- 
ment. 

From the beginning of the controversy, the arguments 
for and against have turned upon the evidence of progres-/ 
sion in organic forms, found in the ascending series of our N 
sedimentary formations. On the one hand, those who con- 
tend that higher organisms have been evolved out of low- ) 
er, joined with those who contend that successively higher 
organisms have been created at successively later periods, 
appeal for proof to the facts of Palaeontology ; which, they 
say, countenance their views. On the other hand, theUni- 
formitarians, who not only reject the hypothesis of devel- 
opment, but deny that the modern forms of life are higher 
than the ancient ones, reply that the Palseontological evi- 
dence is at present very incomplete ; that though we have 
not yet found remains of highly-organized creatures in 
strata of the greatest antiquity, we must not assume that 
no such creatures existed when those strata were deposited ; 
and that, probably, geological research will eventually dis- 
close them. 

It must be admitted that thus far, the evidence has 
gone iu favoui of the latter party. Geological discovery 



366 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

has year after year shown the small value of negative facts. 
The conviction that there are no traces of higher organising 
in earlier strata, has resulted not from the absence of such 
remains, but from incomplete examination. At p. 460 of 
his Manual of Elementary Geology, Sir Charles Lyell 
gives a list in illustration of this. It appears that in 1709, 
fishes were not known lower than the Permian system. In 
1793 they were found in the subjacent Carboniferous sys- 
tem ; in 1828 in the Devonian ; in 1840 in the Upper Silu- 
rian. Of reptiles, we read that in 1710 the lowest known 
were in the Permian; in 1844 they were detected in the 
Carboniferous; and in 1852 in the Upper Devonian. 
While of the Mammalia the list shows that in 1798 none 
had been discovered below the middle Eocene; but that in 
1818 they were discovered in the Lower Oolite; and in 
1847 in the Upper Trias. 

The fact is, however, that both parties set out with an 
inadmissible postulate. Of the Uniformitarians, not only 
such writers as Hugh Miller, but also such as Sir Charles 
Lyell,* reason as though we had found the earliest, or some- 
thing like the earliest, strata. Their antagonists, whether 
defenders of the Development Hypothesis or simply Pro- 
gressionists, almost uniformly do the like. Sir R. Murchi- 
son, who is a Progressionist, calls the lowest fossiliferous 
strata, " Protozoic." Prof. Ansted uses the same term. 
Whether avowedly or not, all the disputants stand on this 
assumption as their common ground. 

Yet is this assumption indefensible, as some who make 
t very well know. Facts may be cited against it which 
show that it is a more than questionable one — that it is a 
highly improbable one ; while the evidence assigned in its 
favour will not bear criticism. 

* Sir Charles Lyell is no longer to be classed among Uniformitarians. 
With rare and admirable candour he has, since this was written, yielded 
to the arguments of Mr. Darwin. 



CAN WE FIND THE BEGINNING OF LIFE? 367 

Because in Bohemia, Great Britain, and portions of 
North America, the lowest unmetamorphosed strata yet 
discovered, contain but slight traces of life, Sir R. Murchi* 
son conceives that they were formed while yet few, if any, 
plants or animals had been created ; and, therefore, classes 
them as " Azoic." His own pages, however, show the 
illegitimacy of the conclusion that there existed at that 
period no considerable amount of life. Such traces of life 
as have been found in the Longmynd rocks, for many years 
considered unfossiliferous, have been found in some of the 
lowest beds ; and the twenty thousand feet of superposed 
beds, still yield no organic remains. If now these super- 
posed strata throughout a depth of four miles, are without 
fossils, though the strata over which they lie prove that 
life had commenced ; what becomes of Sir R. Murchison'a 
inference ? At page 189 of Siluria, a still more conclusive 
fact will be found. The " Glengariff grits," and other 
accompanying strata there described as 13,500 feet thick, 
contain no signs of contemporaneous life. Yet Sir R. Mur- 
chison refers them to the Devonian period — a period that 
had a large and varied marine Fauna. How then, from 
the absence of fossils in the Longmynd beds and their 
equivalents, can we conclude that the Earth was " azoic " 
when they were formed ? 

"But," it may be asked, "if living creatures then exist 
ed, why do we not find fossiliferous strata of that age, or 
an earlier age ? " One reply is, that the non-existence of 
such strata is but a negative fact — we have not found them. 
And considering how little we know even of the two -fifths 
of the Earth's surface now above the sea, and how absolute- 
ly ignorant we are of the three-fifths below the sea, it is 
rash to say that no such strata exist. But the chief reply 
is, that these records of the Earth's earlier history have 
been in great part destroyed, by agencies that are ever 
tending to destroy such records. 



368 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

It is an established geological doctrine, that sedimentary 
strata are liable to be changed, more or less completely, 
by igneous action. The rocks originally classed as "transi- 
tion," because they were intermediate in character between 
the igneous rocks found below them, and the sedimentary 
strata found above them, are now known to be nothing else 
than sedimentary strata altered in texture and appearance 
by the intense heat of adjacent molten matter ; and hence 
are renamed " metamorphic rocks." Modern researches 
have shown, too, that these metamorphic rocks are not, as 
was once supposed, all of the same age. Besides primary 
and secondary strata that have been transformed by igneous 
action, there are similarly-changed deposits of tertiary ori- 
gin ; and that, even for a quarter of a mile from the point 
of contact with neighbouring granite. By this process 
fossils are of course destroyed. " In some cases," says Sir 
Charles Lyell, " dark limestones, replete with shells and 
corals, have been turned into white statuary marble, and 
hard clays, containing vegetable or other remains, into 
slates called mica-schist or hornblende-schist ; every vestige 
of the organic bodies having been obliterated." 

Again, it is fast becoming an acknowledged truth, that 
igneous rock, of whatever kind, is the product of sedimen- 
tary strata that have been completely melted. Granite 
and gneiss, which are of like chemical composition, have 
been shown, in various cases, to pass one into the other : as 
at Valorsine, near Mont Blanc, where the two, in contact, 
are observed to "both undergo a modification of miueral 
character. The granite still remaining unstratified, be- 
comes charged with green particles ; and the talcose gneiss 
assumes a granitiform structure without losing its stratifi- 
cation." In the Aberdeen-granite, lumps of unmelted 
gneiss are frequently found ; and we can ourselves bear 
witness that on the banks of Loch Sunart, there is ample 
proof that the granite of that region, when it was mol 



THE EARLIEST STRATA MELTED CP. dbV 

leu, contained incompletely-fused clots of sedimentary 
strata. Nor is this all. Fifty years ago, it was thought 
that all granitic rocks were primitive, or existed before 
any sedimentary strata ; but it is now " no easy task to 
point out a single mass of granite demonstrably more an- 
cient than all the known fossiliferous deposits." 

In brief, accumulated evidence clearly shows, that by 
contact with, or proximity to, the molten matter of the 
Earth's nucleus, all beds of sediment are liable to be 
actually melted, or partially fused, or so heated as tc 
agglutinate their particles ; and that according to the tem- 
perature they have been raised to, and the circumstances 
under which they cool, they assume the forms of granite, 
porphyry, trap, gneiss, or rock otherwise altered. Further, 
it is manifest that though strata of vaiious ages have been 
thus changed, yet that the most ancient strata have been 
so changed to the greatest extent : both because they 
have habitually lain nearer to the centre of igneous agency; 
and because they have been for a longer period liable to 
the effects of this agency. Whence it follows, that sedi- 
mentary strata passing a certain antiquity, are unlikely to 
be found in an unmetamorphosed state ; and that strata 
much earlier than those are certain to have been melted 
up. Thus if, throughout a past of indefinite duration, 
there had been at work those aqueous and igneous agen- 
cies which we see still at work, the state of the Earth's 
crust might be just what we find it. We have no evidence 
which puts a limit to the period throughout which this for- 
mation and destruction of strata has been going on. For 
aught the facts prove, it may have been going on for ten 
times the period measured by our whole series of sedimen- 
tary deposits. 

Besides having, in the present appearances of the 
Earth's crust, no data for fixing a commencement to these 
processes — besides finding that the evidence permits us to 



370 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

assume such commencement to have been inconceivably 
remote, as compared even with the vast eras of geology ; 
we are not without positive grounds for inferring the in- 
conceivable remoteness of such commencement. Modern 
geology has established truths which are irreconcilable 
with the belief that the formation and destruction of strata 
began when the Cambrian rocks were formed ; or at any- 
thing like so recent a time. One fact from Siluria will 
suffice. Sir R. Murchison estimates the vertical thickness 
of Silurian strata in Wales, at from 26,000 to 2*7,000 feet, 
or about five miles ; and if to this we add the vertical 
depth of the Cambrian strata, on which the Silurians lie 
conformably, there results, on the lowest computation, a 
total depth of seven miles. 

Now it is held by geologists, that this vast accumula- 
tion of strata must have been deposited in an area of grad- 
ual subsidence. These strata could not have been thus 
laid on each other in regular order, unless the Earth's crust 
had been at that place sinking, either continuously or by 
very small steps. Such an immense subsidence, however, 
must have been impossible without a crust of great thick- 
ness. The Earth's molten nucleus tends ever, with enor- 
mous force, to assume the form of a regular oblate sphe- 
roid. Any depression of its crust below the surface of 
equilibrium, and any elevation of its crust above that sur- 
face, have to withstand immense resistance. It follows 
inevitably that, with a thin crust, nothing but small eleva- 
tions and subsidences would be possible ; and that, con- 
versely, a subsidence of seven miles implies a crust of com- 
paratively great strength, or, in other words, of great 
thickness. Indeed, if we compare this inferred subsidence 
in the Silurian period, with such elevations and depressions 
as our existing continents and oceans display, we see no 
evidence that the Earth's crust was appreciably thinner 
then than now. What are the implications ? If, as geolo- 



THE EAKLY EECOEDS HAVE BEEN DESTROYED. 371 

gists generally admit, the Earth's crust has resulted from 
that slow cooling which is even still going on — if we see no 
sign that at the time when the earliest Cambrian strata 
were formed, this crust was appreciably thinner than now ; 
we are forced to conclude that the era during which it 
acquired that great thickness possessed in the Cambrian 
period, was enormous as compared with the interval be- 
tween the Cambrian period and our own. But during the 
incalculable series of epochs thus inferred, there existed an 
ocean, tides, winds, waves, rain, rivers. The agencies by 
which the denudation of continents and filling up of seas 
have all along been carried on, were as active then as now. 
Endless successions of strata must have been formed. And 
when we ask — Where are they ? Nature's obvious reply 
is — They have been destroyed by that igneous action to 
which so great a part of our oldest-known strata owe their 
fusion or metamorphosis. 

Only the last chapter of the Earth's history has come 
down to us. The many previous chapters, stretching back 
to a time immeasurably remote, have been burnt ; and 
with them all the records of life we may presume they con- 
tained. The greater part of the evidence which might 
have served to settle the Development-controversy, is for 
ever lost ; and on neither side can the arguments derived 
from Geology be conclusive. 

" But how happen there to be such evidences of pro- 
gression as exist ? " it may be asked. " How happens it 
that, in ascending from the most ancient strata to the most 
recent strata, we do find a succession of organic forms, 
which, however irregularly, carries us from lower to high- 
er ? " This question seems difficult to answer. Neverthe- 
less, there is reason for thinking that nothing can be safely 
inferred from the apparent progression here cited. And 
the illustration which shows as much, will, we believe, also 
show how little trust is to be placed in certain geological 



372 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

generalizations that appear to be well established. With 
this somewhat elaborate illustration, to which we now pass, 
our criticisms may fitly conclude. 

Let us suppose that in a region now covered by wide 
ocean, there begins one of those great and gradual up- 
heavals by which new continents are formed. To be pre- 
cise, let us say that in the South Pacific, midway between 
New Zealand and Patagonia, the sea-bottom has been 
little by little thrust up towards the surface, and is about 
to emerge. What will be the successive phenomena, 
geological and biological, which are likely to occur before this 
emerging sea-bottom has become another Europe or Asia ? 

In the first place, such portions of the incipient land as 
are raised to the level of the waves, will be rapidly denud- 
ed by them : their soft substance will be torn up by the 
breakei-s, carried away by the local currents, and deposited 
in neighbouring deeper water. Successive small upheavals 
will bring new and larger areas within reach of the waves ; 
fresh portions will each time be removed from the surfaces 
previously denuded ; and further, some of the newly-form- 
ed strata, being elevated nearly to the level of the water, 
will be washed away and re-deposited. In course of time, 
the harder formations of the upraised sea-bottom will be 
uncovered. These being less easily destroyed, will remain 
permanently above the surface ; and at their margins will 
arise the usual breaking down of rocks into beach-sand and. 
pebbles. While in the slow process of this elevation, going 
on at the rate of perhaps two or three feet in a century, 
most of the sedimentary deposits produced will be again 
and again destroyed and reformed ; there will, in those ad- 
jacent areas of subsidence which accompany areas of eleva- 
tion, be more or less continuous successions of sedimentary 
deposits. 

And now what will be the character of these new strata ? 
They will necessarily contain scarcely any traces of life 



SUPPOSED CASE OF A VAST UPHEAVAL. 373 

The deposits that had previously been slowly formed at the 
bottom of this wide ocean, would be sprinkled with fossils 
of but few species. The oceanic Fauna is not a rich one : 
its hydrozoa do not admit of preservation ; and the hard 
parts of its few kinds of molluscs and crustaceans and in- 
sects are mostly fragile. Hence, when the ocean-bed wac 
here and there raised to the surface — when its strata oi 
sediment with their contained organic fragments were torn 
up and long washed about by the breakers before being re- 
deposited — when the re-deposits were again and again sub- 
ject to this violent abrading action by subsequent small ele- 
vations, as they would mostly be ; what few fragile organic 
remains they contained, would be in nearly all cases destroy- 
ed. Thus such of the first-formed strata as survived the 
repeated changes of level, would be practically " azoic ; " 
like the Cambrian of our geologists. When by the wash- 
ing away of the soft deposits, the hard sub-strata had been 
exposed in the shape of rocky islets, and a footing had thus 
been furnished, the pioneers of a new life might be expect- 
ed to make their appearance. What would they be? 
Not any of the surrounding oceanic species, for these are 
not fitted for a littoral fife ; but species flourishing on some 
of the far-distant shores of the Pacific. Of such the first 
to establish themselves would be sea-weeds and zoophytes ; 
both because their swarming spores and gemmules would 
be the most readily conveyed with safety, and because when 
conveyed they would find fit food. It is true that Cirrhi- 
peds and Lamellibranchs, subsisting on the minute creatures 
which everywhere people the sea, would also find fit 
food. 

But passing over the fact that the germs of such higher 
forms are neither so abundant nor so well fitted to bear 
long voyages, there is the more important fact that the in- 
dividuals arising from these germs can reproduce only sex- 
ually, and that this vastly increases the obstacles to the es- 



374: ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

tablishment of their races. The chances of early coloniza- 
tion are immensely in favour of species which, multiplying by 
agamogenesis, can people a whole shore from a single germ ; 
and immensely against species which, multiplying only by 
gamogenesis, must be introduced in considerable numbers 
that some may survive, meet, and propagate. Thus we in- 
fer that the earliest traces of life left in the sedimentary de- 
posits near these new shores, will be traces of life as humble 
as that indicated in the most ancient rocks of Great Brit- 
ain and Ireland. Imagine now that the processes we have 
briefly indicated, continue — that the emerging lands become 
wider in extent, and fringed by higher and more varied 
shores; and that there still go on those ocean-currents 
which, at long intervals, convey from far distant shores 
immigrant forms of life. What will result ? Lapse of 
time will of course favour the introduction of such new 
forms : admitting, as it must, of those combinations of fit 
conditions, which, under the law of probabilities, can occur 
only at very distant intervals. Moreover, the increasing 
area of the islands, individually and as a group, implies in- 
creasing length of coast ; from which there follows a longer 
line of contact with the streams and waves that bring drift- 
ing masses ; and, therefore, a greater chance that germs of 
fresh life will be stranded. 

And once more, the comparatively-varied shores, pre- 
senting physical conditions that change from mile to mile, 
will furnish suitable habitats for more numerous species. 
So that as the elevation proceeds, three causes conspire to 
introduce additional marine plants and animals. To what 
classes will the increasing Fauna be for a long period con- 
fined ? Of course, to classes of which individuals, or their 
germs, are most liable to be carried far away from their native 
shores by floating sea-weed or drift-wood ; to classes which 
are also least likely to perish in transit, or from change of cli- 
mate ; and to those which can best subsist around coasts 



COLONIZATION OF THE NEW CONTINENT. 375 

comparatively bare of life. Evidently, then, corals, annelids, 
inferior molluscs, and crustaceans of low grade, will chiefly 
constitute the early Fauna. The large predatory members 
of these classes, will be later in establishing themselves ; 
both because the new shores must first become well peo- 
pled by the creatures they prey on, and because, being 
raore complex, they or their ova must be less likely to 
survive the journey, and the change of conditions. 

We may infer, then, that the strata deposited next after 
the almost " azoic " strata, would contain the remains of 
invertebrata, allied to those found near the shores of Australia 
and South America. Of such invertebrate remains, the low- 
er beds would furnish comparatively few genera, and those 
of relatively low types ; while in the upper beds the num- 
ber of genera would be greater, and the types higher : just as 
among the fossils of our Silurian system. As this great geolo- 
gic change slowly progressed through its long history of 
earthquakes, volcanic disturbances, minor upheavals and sub- 
sidences — as the extent of the archipelago became greater 
and its smaller islands coalescedinto lai-ger ones, while its coast 
line grew still longer and more varied, and the neighbouring 
sea more thickly inhabited by inferior forms of life ; the lowest 
division of the vertebrata would begin to be represented. 
In order of time, fish would naturally come after the lower 
invertebrata : both as being less likely to have their ova 
transported across the w r aste of waters, and as requiring 
for their subsistence a pre-existing Fauna of some devel- 
opment. They might be expected to make their appearance 
along with the predaceous crustaceans ; as they do in the 
uppermost Silurian rocks. 

And here, too, let us remark, that as, during this long 
epoch we have been describing, the sea would have made 
great inroads on some of the newly raised lands that had 
remained stationary ; and would probably in some places 
have reached masses of igneous or metamorphic rocks' 



376 ILLOGICAL GEOLCGT. 

there might, in course of time, arise by the decomposition 
and denudation of such rocks, local deposits coloured witb 
oxide of iron, like our Old Red Sandstone. And in these 
deposits might he buried the remains of the fish then peo 
pling the neighbouring sea. 

Meanwhile, how would the surfaces of the upheaved 
masses be occupied ? At first their deserts of naked rocks 
and pebbles would bear only the humblest forms of vegetal 
life, such as we find in grey and orange patches on our 
own rugged mountain sides ; for these alone could flourish 
on such surfaces, and their spores would be the most read- 
ily transported. When, by the decay of such protophytes, 
and that decomposition of rock effected by them, there 
had resulted a fit habitat for mosses ; these, of which the 
germs might be conveyed in drifted trees, would begin to 
spread. A soil having been eventually thus produced, it 
would become possible for plants of higher organization to 
find roothold ; and as in the way we have described the 
archipelago and its constituent islands grew larger, and 
had more multiplied relations with winds and waters, such 
higher plants might be expected ultimately to have their 
seeds transferred from the nearest lands. After something 
like a Flora had thus colonized the surface, it would be- 
come possible for insects to exist ; and of air-breathing 
creatures, insects would manifestly be among the first to 
find their way from elsewhere. 

As, however, terrestrial organisms, both vegetal and 
animal, are much less likely than marine organisms to sur- 
vive the accidents of transport from distant shores ; it is 
clear that long after the sea surrounding these new lands 
Had acquired a varied Flora and Fauna, the lands them- 
selves would still be comparatively bare ; and thus that the 
early strata, like our Silurians, would afford no traces of 
terrestrial life. By the time that large areas had been 
raised above the ocean, we may fairly suppose a luxuriant 



CONDITIONS OF CCAIi DEPOSIT. 377 

vegetation to have been acquired. Under what circum« 
stances are we likely to find this vegetation fossilized ? 
Large surfaces of land imply large rivers with their accom- 
panying deltas ; and are liable to have lakes and swamps 
These, as we know from extant cases, are favourable tc 
rank vegetation ; and afford the conditions needful for pre- 
serving it in the shape of coal-beds. Observe, then, that 
while in the early history of such a continent a carbonif- 
erous period could not occur, the occurrence of a carbonif- 
erous period would become probable after long-continued 
upheavals had uncovered large areas. As in our own sedi- 
mentary series, coal-beds would make their appearance only 
after there had been enormous accumulations of earlier 
strata charged with marine fossils. 

Let us ask next, in what order the higher forms of ani- 
mal life would make their appeai-ance. We have seen how, 
in the succession of marine forms, there would be some- 
thing like a progress from the lower to the higher : bring- 
ing us in the end to predaceous molluscs, crustaceans, and 
fish. What are likely to succeed fish ? After marine crea- 
tures, those which would have the greatest chance of sur- 
viving the voyage would be amphibious reptiles : both be- 
cause they are more tenacious of life than higher animals, 
and because they would be less completely out of their 
element. Such reptiles as can live in both fresh and salt 
water, like alligators ; and such as are drifted out of the 
mouths of great rivers on floating trees, as Humboldt says 
the Orinoco alligators are ; might be early colonists. 

It is manifest, too, that reptiles of other kinds would 
be among the first vertebrata to people the new continent. 
If we consider what will occur on one of those natural 
rafts of trees, soil, and matted vegetable matter, sometimes 
swept out to sea by such currents as the Mississippi, with a 
miscellaneous living cargo ; we shall see that while the 
active, hot-blooded, highly-organized creatures will soon 



378 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

die of starvation and exposure, the inert, cold-blooded 
ones, which can go long without food, will live perhaps for 
weeks ; and so, out of the chances from time to time oc- 
curring during long periods, reptiles will be the first to get 
safely landed on foreign shores : as indeed they are even 
aow known sometimes to be. The transport of mammalia 
being comparatively precarious, must, in the order of prob- 
ability, be longer postponed ; and would, indeed, be un- 
likely to occur until by the enlargement of the new conti- 
nent, the distances of its shores from adjacent lands had 
been greatly diminished, or the formation of intervening 
islands had increased the chances of survival. 

Assuming, however, that the facilities of immigration 
had become adequate ; which would be the first mammals 
to arrive and live ? Not large herbivores ; for they would 
be soon drowned if by any accident carried out to sea. 
Not the carnivora ; for these would lack appropriate food, 
even if they outlived the voyage. Small quadrupeds fre- 
quenting trees, and feeding on insects, would be those most 
likely both to be drifted away from their native lands and 
to find fit food in a new one. Insectivorous mammals, like 
in size to those found in the Trias and the Stonesfield slate, 
might naturally be looked for as the pioneers of the higher 
vertebrata. And if we suppose the facilities of communi- 
cation to bo again increased, either by a further shallowing 
of the intervening sea and a consequent multiplication of 
islands, or by an actual junction of the new continent with 
an old one, through continued upheavals ; we should finally 
have an influx of the larger and more perfect mammals. 

Now rude as is this sketch of a process that would be 
extremely elaborate and involved, and open as some of its 
propositions are to criticisms which there is no space here 
to meet ; no one will deny that it represents something liko 
the biologic history of the supposed new continent. De 
tails apart, it is manifest that simple organisms, able to 



HXGHEE LIFE UPON THE NEW CONTINENT. 379 

flourish under simple conditions of life, would be the first 
successful immigrants ; and that more complex organisms, 
needing for their existence the fulfilment of more complex 
conditions, would afterwards establish themselves in some- 
thing like an ascending succession. At the one extreme 
we see every facility. The new individuals can be con- 
veyed in the shape of minute germs ; these are infinite in 
their numbers ; they are diffused in the sea ; they are per- 
petually being carried in all directions to great distances 
by ocean-currents ; they can survive such long journeys 
unharmed ; they can find nutriment wherever they arrive ; 
and the resulting organisms can multiply asexually with 
great rapidity. 

At the other extreme, we see every difficulty. The 
dew individuals must be conveyed in their adult forms ; 
their numbers are, in comparison, utterly insignificant ; 
they live on land, and are very unlikely to be carried out 
to sea; when so carried, the chances are immense against 
their escape from drowning, starvation, or death by cold ; 
if they survive the transit, they must have a pre-existing 
Flora or Fauna to supply their special food ; they require, 
also, the fulfilment of various other physical conditions ; 
and unless at least two individuals of different sexes are 
safely landed, the race cannot be established. Manifestly, 
then, the immigration of each successively higher order of 
organisms, having, from one or other additional condition 
to be fulfilled, an enormously-increased probability against 
it, would naturally be separated from the immigration of a 
lower order by some period like a geologic epoch. 

And thus the successive sedimentary deposits formed 
while this new continent was undergoing gradual elevation, 
would seem to furnish clear evidence of a general progress 
in the forms of life. That lands thus raised up in the midst 
of a wide ocean, would first give origin to unfossiliferous 
strata ; next, to strata containing only the lowest marine 



380 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 

forms ; next, to strata containing higher marine forms, as- 
cending finally to fish ; and that the strata above these 
would contain reptiles, then small mammals, then great 
mammals ; seems to us to be demonstrable from the known 
laws of organic life. 

And if the succession of fossils presented by the strata 
of this supposed new continent, would thus simulate the 
succession presented by our own sedimentary series ; must 
we not say that our own sedimentary series very possibly 
records nothing more than the phenomena accompanying 
one of these great upheavals ? "We think this must be 
considered not only possible, but highly probable : har- 
monizing as it does with the unavoidable conclusion before 
pointed out, that geological changes must have been going 
on for a period immeasurably greater than that of which 
we have records. And if the probability of this conclu- 
sion be admitted, it must be admitted that the facts of 
Palaeontology can never suffice either to prove or disprove 
the Development Hypothesis ; but that the most they can 
do is, to show whether the last few pages of the Earth's 
biologic history are or are not in harmony with this hy- 
pothesis — whether the existing Flora and Fauna can or can 
not be affiliated upon the Flora and Fauna of the most re- 
cent geologic times. 



IX. 
THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS. 



IN a debate upon the development hypothesis, lately nar 
rated to me by a friend, one of the disputants was de- 
scribed as arguing, that as, in all our experience, we know 
no such phenomenon as transmutation of species, it is un- 
philosophical to assume that transmutation of species ever 
takes place. Had I been present, I think that, passing over 
his assertion, which is open to criticism, I should have re- 
plied that, as in all our experience we have never known a 
species created, it was, by his own showing, unphilosophical 
to assume that any species ever had been created. 

Those who cavaliei'ly reject the Theory of Evolution, as 
not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget 
that their own theory is supported by no facts at all. Like 
the majority of men who are born to a given belief, they 
demand the most rigorous proof of any adverse belief, but 
assume that their own needs none. Here we find, scattered 
over the globe, vegetable and animal organisms numbering, 
of the one kind (accoi'ding to Humboldt), some 320,000 
species, and of the other, some 2,000,000 species (see Car- 
penter) ; and if to these we add the numbers of animal and 
vegetable species that have become extinct, we may safely 
estimate the number of species that have existed, and are 



3S2 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS. 

existing, on the Earth, at not less than ten millions. "Well, 
which is the most rational theory about these ten millions 
of species ? Is it most likely that there have been ten mil- 
lions of special creations ? or is it most likely that by con- 
tinual modifications, due to change of circumstances, ten 
millions of varieties have been produced, as varieties are 
being produced still ? 

Doubtless many will reply that they can more easily 
conceive ten millions of special creations to have taken 
place, than they can conceive that ten millions of varieties 
have arisen by successive modifications. All such, howev- 
er, will find, on inquiry, that they are under an illusion. 
This is one of the many cases in which men do not really 
believe, but rather believe they believe. It is not that they 
can truly conceive ten millions of special creations to have 
taken place, but that they thi?ik they can do so. Careful 
introspection will show them that they have never yet real- 
ized to themselves the creation of even one species. If 
they have formed a definite conception of the process, let 
them tell us how a new species is constructed, and how it 
makes its appearance. Is it thrown down from the clouds? 
or must we hold to the notion that it struggles up out of 
the ground ? Do its limbs and viscera rush together from 
all the points of the compass ? or must we receive the old 
Hebrew idea, that God takes clay and moulds a new crea- 
ture ? If they say that a new creature is produced in none 
of these modes, which are too absurd to be believed ; then 
they are required to describe the mode in which a new 
creature may be produced — a mode which does not seem 
absurd : and such a mode they will find that they neither 
have conceived nor can conceive. 

Should the believers in special creations consider it un- 
fair thus to call upon them to describe how special creations 
take place, I reply, that this is far less than they demand 
from the supporters of the Development Hypothesis, They 



IMPRESSIBILITY OF ORGANISMS. 383 

are merely asked to point out a conceivable mode. On the 
other hand, they ask, not simply for a conceivable mode, 
but for the actual mode. They do not say — Show us how 
this may take place ; but they say — Show us how this does 
take place. So far from its being unreasonable to put the 
above question, it would be reasonable to ask not only for 
a, possible mode of special creation, but for an ascertained 
mode ; seeing that this is no greater a demand than they 
make upon their opponents. 

And here we may perceive how much more defensible 
the new doctrine is than the old one. Even could the sup- 
porters of the Development Hypothesis merely show that 
the origination of species by the process of modification is 
conceivable, they would be in a better position than their 
opponents. But they can do much more than this. They 
can show that the process of modification has effected, and 
is effecting, decided changes in all organisms subject to 
modifying influences. Though, from the impossibility of 
getting at a sufficiency of facts, they are unable to trace 
the many phases through which any existing species has 
passed in arriving at its present form, or to identify the in- 
fluences which caused the successive modifications ; yet, 
they can show that any existing species — animal or vegeta- 
ble — when placed under conditions different from its pre- 
vious ones, immediately begins to undergo certain changes 
of structure fitting it for the new conditions. They can 
show that in successive generations these changes continue, 
until ultimately the new conditions become the natural 
ones. They can show that in cultivated plants, in domesti- 
cated animals, and in the several races of men, such altera- 
tions have taken place. They can show that the degrees 
of difference so produced are often, as in dogs, greater than 
those on which distinctions of species are in other cases 
founded. They can show that it is a matter of dispute 
whether some of these modified forms are varieties or sepa- 
18 



384 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS. 

rate species. They can show, too, that the changes daily 
taking place in ourselves — the facility that attends long 
practice, and the loss of aptitude that begins when practice 
ceases — the strengthening of passions habitually gratified, 
and the weakening of those habitually curbed — the devel- 
opment of every faculty, bodily, moral, or intellectual, ac- 
cording to the use made of it — are all explicable on this 
same principle. And thus they can show that throughout 
all organic nature there is at work a modifying influence 
of the kind they assign as the cause of these specific differ- 
ences : an influence which, though slow in its action, does, 
in time, if the circumstances demand it, produce marked 
changes — an influence which, to all appearance, would pro- 
duce in the millions of years, and under the great varieties 
of condition which geological records imply, any amount 
of change. 

Which, then, is the most rational hypothesis ? — that of 
special creations Avhich has neither a fact to support it nor 
is even definitely conceivable ; or that of modification, 
which is not only definitely conceivable, but is countenanced 
by the habitudes of every existing organism ? 

That by any series of changes a protozoon should ever 
become a mammal, seems to those who are not familiar 
with zoology, and who have not seen how clear becomes 
the relationship between the simplest and the most com- 
plex forms when intermediate forms are examined, a very 
grotesque notion. Habitually looking at things rather in 
their statical than in their dynamical aspect, they nevei 
realize the fact that, by small increments of modification, 
any amount of modification may in time be generated. 
That surprise which they feel on finding one whom they 
last saw as a boy, grown into a man, becomes incredulity 
when the degree of change is greater. Nevertheless, abun- 
dant instances are at hand of the mode in which we may 
pass to the most diverse forms, by insensible gradations. 



EFFECTS OF INSENSIBLE MODIFICATIONS. 385 

Arguing the matter some time since with a learned pro- 
fessor, I illustrated my position thus: — You admit that 
there is no apparent relationship between a circle and an 
hyperbola. The one is a finite curve ; the other is an in- 
finite one. All parts of the one are alike ; of the other no 
two parts are alike. The one incloses a space ; the other 
will not inclose a space though produced for ever. Yet 
opposite as are these curves in all their properties, they 
may be connected together by a series of intermediate 
curves, no one of which differs from the adjacent ones in 
auy appreciable degree. Thus, if a cone be cut by a plane 
at right angles to its axis we get a circle. If, instead of 
being perfectly at right angles, the plane subtends with the 
axis an angle of 89° 59', we have an ellipse, which no hu- 
man eye, even when aided by an accurate pair of compasses, 
can distinguish from a circle. Decreasing the angle min- 
ute by minute, the ellipse becomes first perceptibly eccen- 
tric, then manifestly so, and by and by acquires so im- 
mensely elongated a form, as to bear no recognisable re- 
'♦emblance to a circle. By continuing this process, the 
ellipse passes insensibly into a parabola ; and ultimately, by 
still further diminishing the angle, into an hyperbola. Now 
here we have four different species of curve — circle, ellipse, 
parabola, and hyperbola — each having its peculiar proper- 
ties and its separate equation, and the first and last of which 
are quite opposite in nature, connected together as mem- 
bers of one series, all producible by a single process of in- 
sensible modification. 

But the blindness of those who think it absurd to sup- 
pose that complex organic forms may have arisen by suc- 
cessive modifications out of simple ones, becomes astonish- 
ing when we remember that complex organic forms are 
daily being thus produced. A tree differs from a seed 
immeasurably in every respect — in bulk, in structure, in 
colour, in form, in specific gravity, in chemical composition : 



386 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS. 

differs so greatly that no visible resemblance of any kind 
can be pointed out between them. Yet is the one changed 
in the course of a few years into the other : changed so 
gradually, that at no moment can it be said — Now the 
seed ceases to be, and the tree exists. What can be more 
widely contrasted than a newly-born child and the small, 
semi-transparent, gelatinous spherule constituting the hu- 
man ovum ? The infant is so complex in structure that a 
cyclopaedia is needed to describe its constituent parts. 
The germinal vesicle is so simple that it may be defined in 
a line. Nevertheless, a few months suffice to develop the 
one out of the other ; and that, too, by a series of modifi- 
cations so small, that were the embryo examined at succes- 
sive minutes, even a microscope would with difficulty dis- 
close any sensible changes. That the uneducated and the 
ill-educated should think the hypothesis that all races of 
beings, man inclusive, may in process of time have been 
evolved from the simplest monad, a ludicrous one, is not to 
be wondered at. But for the physiologist, who knows that 
every individual being is so evolved — who knows further, 
that in their earliest condition the germs of all plants and 
animals whatever are so similar, "that there is no apprecia- 
ble distinction amongst them which would enable it to be 
determined whether a particular molecule is the germ of a 
conferva or of an oak, of a zoophyte or of a man ; " * — for 
him to make a difficulty of the matter is inexcusable. Sure- 
ly if a single cell may, when subjected to certain influences, 
become a man in the space of twenty years ; there is 
nothing absurd in the hypothesis that under certain other 
influences, a cell may in the course of millions of years 
give origin to the human race. The two processes are 
generically the same ; and differ only in length and com- 
plexity. 

We have, indeed, in the part taken by many scientific 
* Carpenter. 



SOURCE OF THE NOTION OF SPECIAL CREATIONS. 387 

men in this controversy of " Law versus Miracle," a good 
illustration of the tenacious vitality of superstitions. Ask 
one of our leading geologists or physiologists whether he 
"believes in the Mosaic account of the creation, and he will 
take the question as next to an insult. Either he rejects 
the narrative entirely, or understands it in some vague 
non-natural sense. Yet one part of it he unconsciously 
adopts ; and that, too, literally. For whence has he got 
this notion of " special creations," which he thinks so 
reasonable, and fights for so vigorously ? Evidently he 
can trace it hack to no other source than this myth which 
he repudiates. He has not a single fact in nature to quote 
in proof of it; nor is he prepared with any chain of abstract 
reasoning by which it may he established. Catechise him, 
and he will he forced to confess that the notion was put into 
his mind in childhood as part of a story which he now 
thinks absurd. And why, after rejecting all the rest of this 
story, he should strenuously defend this last remnant of it 
as though he had received it on valid authority, he would 
be puzzled to say. 



X. 

THE SOCIAL ORGANISM. 



SIR JAMES MACINTOSH got great credit for the 
saying, that " constitutions are not made, but grow." 
In our day, the most significant thing about this saying is, 
that it was ever thought so significant. As from the sur- 
prise displayed by a man at some familiar fact, you may 
judge of his general culture ; so from the admiration 
which an age accords to a new thought, its average degree 
of enlightenment may be inferred. That this apophthegm 
of Macintosh should have been quoted and re-quoted as it 
has, shows how profound has been the ignorance of social 
science. A small ray of truth has seemed brilliant, as a 
distant rushlight looks like a star in the surrounding dark- 
ness. 

Such a conception could not, indeed, fail to be startling 
when let fall in the midst of a system of thought to which 
it was utterly alien. Universally in Macintosh's day, things 
were explained on the hypothesis of manufacture, rather 
than that of growth : as indeed they are, by the majority, 
in our own day. It was held that the planets were sever- 
ally projected round the sun from the Creator's hand ; with 
exactly the velocity required to balance the sun's attrac- 
tion. The formation of the Earth, the separation of sea 
from land, the production of animals, were mechanical 



SOCIETIES ARE NOT MADE, BUT GKOW. 389 

W<jrks from which God rested as a labourer rests. Man 
was supposed to be moulded after a manner somewhat akin 
to that in which a modeller makes a clay-figure. And of 
course, in harmony with such ideas, societies were tacitly 
assumed to be arranged thus or thus by direct interposition 
of Providence ; or by the regulations of law-makers ; or by 
both. 

Yefc that societies are not artificially put together, is a 
truth so manifest, that it seems wonderful men should have 
ever overlooked it. Perhaps nothing more clearly shows 
the small value of historical studies, as they have been 
commonly pursued. You need but to look at the changes 
going on around, or observe social organization in its lead- 
ing peculiarities, to see that these are neither supernatural, 
nor are determined by the wills of individual men, as by 
implication historians commonly teach ; but are consequent 
on general natural causes. The one case of the division of 
labour suffices to show this. It has not been by command 
of any ruler that some men have become manufacturers, 
while others have remained cultivators of the soil. In 
Lancashire, millions have devoted themselves to the making 
of cotton-fabrics ; in Yorkshire, another million lives by 
producing woollens ; and the pottery of Staffordshire, the 
cutlery of Sheffield, the hardware of Birmingham, severally 
occupy their hundreds of thousands. These are large 
facts in the structure of English society ; but we can as- 
cribe them neither to miracle, nor to legislation. It is not 
by " the hero as king," any more than by " collective wis- 
dom," that men have been segregated into producers, 
wholesale distributors, and retail distributors. 

The whole of our industrial organization, from its main 
outlines down to its minutest details, has become what it 
is, not simply without legislative guidance, but, to a con- 
siderable extent, in spite of legislative hindrances. It has 
arisen under the pressure of human wants and activities. 



390 THE SOCIAL ORGANISM. 

While each citizen has been pursuing his individual wel 
fare, and none taking thought about division of labour, or, 
indeed, conscious of the need for it, division of labour has 
yet been ever becoming more complete. It has been doing 
this slowly and silently : scarcely any having observed it 
until quite modern times. By steps so small, that year 
after year the industrial arrangements have seemed to men 
just what they were before — by changes as insensible as 
those through which a seed passes into a tree ; society has 
become the complex body of mutually-dependent workers 
which we now see. And this economic organization, mark, 
is the all-essential organization. Through the combination 
thus spontaneously evolved, every citizen is supplied with 
daily necessaries ; while he yields some product or aid to 
others. That we are severally alive to-day, we owe to the 
regular working of this combination during the past week; 
and could it be suddenly abolished, a great proportion of 
us would be dead before another week ended. If these 
most conspicuous and vital arrangements of our social 
structure, have arisen without the devising of any one, but 
through the individual efforts of citizens to satisfy their 
own wants ; we may be tolerably certain that the less im- 
portant arrangements have similarly arisen. 

" But surely," it will be said, " the social changes di- 
rectly produced by law, cannot be classed as spontaneous 
growths. When parliaments or kings order this or that 
thing to be done, and appoint officials to do it, the process 
is clearly artificial ; and society to this extent becomes a 
manufacture rather than a growth.'' No, not even these 
changes are exceptions, if they be real and permanent 
changes. The true sources of such changes lie deeper 
than the acts of legislators. To take first the simplest 
instance. We all know that the enactments of represent- 
ative governments ultimately depend on the national 
will : they may for a time be out of harmony with it, but 



GOVERNMENTS ROOTED IN SOCIAL LIFE. 391 

eventually they must conform to it. And to say that the 
national will finally determines them, is to say that they 
result from the average of individual desires ; or, in 
other words — from the average of individual natures. A 
law so initiated, therefore, really grows out of the popular 
character. 

In the case of a Government representing a dominant 
class, the same things holds, though not so manifestly. 
For the very existence of a class monopolizing all power, is 
due to certain sentiments in the commonalty. But for the 
feeling of loyalty on the part of retainers, a feudal system 
could not exist. We see in the protest of the Highlanders 
against the abolition of heritable jurisdictions, that they 
preferred that kind of local rule. And if to the popular 
nature, must thus be ascribed the growth of an irresponsi- 
ble ruling class ; then to the popular nature must be as- 
cribed the social arrangements which that class creates in 
the pursuit of its own ends. Even where the Government 
is despotic, the doctrine still holds. The character of the 
people is, as before, the original source of this political 
form; and, as we have abundant proof, other forms sud- 
denly created will not act, but rapidly retrograde to the 
old form. Moreover, such regulations as a despot makes, 
if really operative, are so because of their fitness to the 
social state. His acts being very much swayed by gen- 
eral opinion — by precedent, by the feeling of his nobles, 
his priesthood, his army — are in part immediate results 
of the national character ; and when they are out of har- 
mony with the national character, they are soon practically 
abrogated. 

The failure of Cromwell permanently to establish a new 
social condition, and the rapid revival of suppressed institu- 
tions and practices after his death, show how powerless is 
a monarch to change the type of the society he governs. 
He may disturb, he may retard, or he may aid the natural 



392 THE SOCIAL ORGANISM. 

process of organization ; but the general course of this 
process is beyond his control. Nay, more than this is true. 
Those who regard the histories of societies as the histories 
of their great men, and think that these great men shape 
the fates of their societies, overlook the truth that such 
great men are the products of their societies. Without cer- 
tain antecedents — without a certain average national char- 
acter, they could neither have been generated nor could 
have had the culture which formed them. If their society 
is to some extent re-moulded by them, they were, both 
before and J after birth, moulded by their society — were the 
results of all those influences which fostered the ancestral 
character they inherited, and gave their own early bias, their 
creed, morals, knowledge, aspirations. So that such social 
changes as are immediately traceable to individuals of un- 
usual power, are still remotely traceable to the social causes 
which produced these individuals, and hence, from the 
highest point of view, such social changes also, are parts 
of the general developmental process. 

Thus that which is so obviously true of the industrial 
structure of society, is true of its whole structure. The fact 
that " constitutions are not made, but grow," is simply a 
fragment of the much larger fact, that under all its aspects 
and though all its ramifications, society is a growth and not 
a manufacture. 

A perception that there exists some analogy between 
the body politic and a living individual body, was early 
reached ; and from time to time re-appeared in literature. 
But this perception was necessarily vague and more or 
less fanciful. In the absence of physiological science, and 
especially of those comprehensive generalizations which it 
has but recently reached, it was impossible to discern the 
real parallelisms. 

The central idea of Plato's model Republic, is the cor 



THEORIES OF PLATO AND HOBBES 393 

respondence between the parts of a society and the faculties 
of the human mind. Classifying these faculties under the 
heads of Reason, Will, and Passion, he classifies the mem- 
bers of his ideal society under what he regards as three 
analogous heads : — councillors, who are to exercise govern- 
ment; military or executive, who are to fulfil their behests; 
and the commonalty, bent on gain and selfish gratification. 
In other words, the ruler, the warrior, and the craftsman, 
are, according to him, the analogues of our reflective, voli- 
tional, and emotional powers. Now even were there truth 
in the implied assumption of a parallelism between the 
structure of a society and that of a man, this classification 
would be indefensible. It might more truly be contended 
that, as the military power obeys the commands of the 
Government, it is the Government which answei's to the 
Will ; while the military power is simply an agency set in 
motion by it. Or, again, it might be contended that 
whereas the Will is a product of predominant desires, to 
which the Reason serves merely as an eye, it is the crafts- 
men, who, according to the alleged analogy, ought to be 
the moving power of the warriors. 

Hobbes sought to establish a still more definite parallel- 
ism : not, however between a society and the human mind, 
but between a society and the human body. In the intro- 
duction to the work in which he developes this conception, 
he says — 

" For by art is created that great Leviathan called a Com- 
monwealth, or State, in Latin Oivitas, which is but an artificial 
man ; though of greater stature and strength than the natural, 
for whose protection and defence it was intended, and in which 
the sovereignty is an artificial soul, as giving life and motion to 
the whole body ; the magistrates and other officers of judica- 
ture and execution, artificial joints ; reward and punishment, by 
which, fastened to the seat of the sovereignty, every joint and 
member is moved to perform his duty, are the nerves, that do 



394 THE SOCIAL ORGANISM. 

the same in the body natural ; the wealth and riches of all the 
particular members are the strength; salus populi, the peopled 
safety, its business ; counsellors, by whom all things needful for it 
to know are suggested unto it, are the memory ; equity and law* 
an artificial reason and will ; concord, health; sedition, sickness ; 
civil war, death.'''' 

And Hobbes carries this comparison so far as actually 
to give a drawing of the Leviathan — a vast human-shaped 
figure, whose body and limbs are made up of multitudes of 
men. Just noting that these different analogies asserted 
by Plato and Hobbes, serve to cancel each other (being, as 
they are, so completely at variance), we may say that on 
the whole those of Hobbes are the more plausible. But 
they are full of inconsistencies. If the sovereignty is the 
soul of the body politic, how can it be that magistrates, 
who are a kind of deputy-sovereigns, should be comparable 
to joints? Or, again, how can the three mental functions, 
memory, reason, and will, be severally analogous, the first to 
counsellors, who are a class of public officers, and the other 
two to equity and laws, which are not classes of officers, 
but abstractions ? Or, once more, if magistrates are the 
artificial joints of society, how can reward and punishment 
be its nerves ? Its nerves must surely be some class of 
persons. Reward and punishment must in societies, as in 
individuals, be conditions of the nerves, and not the nerves 
themselves. 

But the chief errors of these comparisons made by Plato 
and Hobbes, lie much deeper. Both thinkers assume that 
the organization of a society is comparable, not simply to 
the organization of a living body in general, but to the or- 
ganization of the human body in particular. There is no 
warrant whatever for assuming this. It is in no way im- 
plied by the evidence ; and is simply one of those fancies 
which we commonly find mixed up with the truths of early 
speculation. Still more erroneous are the two conception? 



EEEOES OF PLATO AND HOBBE8. 395 

in this, that they construe a society as an artificial struo* 
ture. Plato's model republic — his ideal of a healthful body 
politic — is to be consciously put together by men ; just as 
a watch might be : and Plato manifestly thinks of societies 
in general as thus originated. Quite specifically does 
Hobbes express this view. "For by art" he says, "ia 
created that great Leviathan called a Commonwealth." 
And he even goes so far as to compare the supposed 
social contract, from which a society suddenly originates, 
to the creation of a man by the divine fiat. Thus they 
both fall into the extreme inconsistency of considering a 
community as similar in structure to a human being, and 
yet as produced in the same way as an artificial mechanism 
— in nature, an organism ; in history, a machine. 

Notwithstanding errors, however, these speculations 
have considerable significance. That such analogies, crude- 
ly as they are thought out, should have been alleged by 
Plato and Hobbes and many others, is a reason for suspect- 
ing that some analogy exists. The untenableness of the 
particular comparisons above instanced, is no ground for 
denying an essential parallelism ; for early ideas are usually 
but vague adumbrations of the truth. Lacking the great 
generalizations of biology, it was, as we have said, im- 
possible to trace out the real relations of social organiza- 
tions to organizations of another order. We propose here 
to show what are the analogies which modern science dis- 
closes to us. 

Let us set out by succinctly stating the points of 
similarity and the points of difference. Societies agree 
with individual organisms in four conspicuous peculiari- 
ties :— 

1. That commencing as small aggregations, they insensi- 
bly augment in mass : some of them eventually reaching 
ten thousand times what they originally were. 

2. That while at first so simple in structure as to be 



396 THE SOCIAL ORGANISM. 

considered structureless, they assume, in the course of 
their growth, a continually-increasing complexity of 
structure 

3. That though in their early, undeveloped states, 
there exists in them scarcely any mutual dependence of 
parts, their parts gradually acquire a mutual dependence ; 
which becomes at last so great, that the activity and life 
of each part is made possible only by the activity and life 
of the rest. 

4. That the life and development of a society is inde- 
pendent of, and far more prolonged than, the life and de- 
velopment of any of its component units ; who are severally 
born, grow, work, reproduce, and die, while the body pon- 
tic composed of them survives generation after generation, 
increasing in mass, completeness of structure, and func- 
tional activity. 

These four parallelisms will appear the more significant 
the more we contemplate them. While the points speci- 
fied, are points in which societies agree with individual or- 
ganisms, they are points in which individual organisms 
agree with each other, and disagree with all things else. 
In the course of its existence, every plant and animal in- 
creases in mass, in a way not parallelled by inorganic ob 
jects : even such inorganic objects as crystals, which arise 
by growth, show us no such definite relation between 
growth and existence as organisms do. The orderly pro- 
gress from simplicity to complexity, displayed by bodies 
politic in common with all living bodies, is a characteristic 
which distinguishes living bodies from the inanimate bodies 
amid which they move. That functional dependence of 
parts, which is scarcely more manifest in animals or plants 
than nations, has no counterpart elsewhere. And in no 
aggregate except an organic, or a social one, is there a 
perpetual removal and replacement of parts, joined with a 
continued integrity of the whole. 



ANALOGIES WITH THE VITAL OEGANISM. 397 

Moreover, societies and organisms are not only alike in 
these peculiarities, in which they are unlike all other 
things ; but the highest societies, like the highest organ 
isms, exhibit them in the greatest degree. We see that 
the lowest animals do not increase to anything like the 
sizes of the higher ones ; and, similarly, we see that aborigi- 
nal societies are comparatively limited in their growths. 
In complexity, our large civilized nations as much exceed 
primitive savage tribes, as a vertebrate animal does a 
zoophyte. Simple communities, like simple creatures, 
have so little mutual dependence of parts, that subdivision 
or mutilation causes but little inconvenience ; but from 
complex communities, as from complex creatures, you can- 
not remove any considerable organ without producing 
great disturbance or death of the rest. And in societies 
of low type, as in inferior animals, the life of the aggregate, 
often cut short by division or dissolution, exceeds in length 
the lives of the component units, very far less than in civi- 
lized communities and superior animals ; which outlive 
many generations of their component units. 

On the other hand, the leading differences between 
societies and individual organisms are these : — 

1. That societies have no specific external forms. This, 
however, is a point of contrast which loses much of its im- 
portance, when we remember that throughout the vegetal 
kingdom, as well as in some lower divisions of the animal 
kingdom, the forms are often very indefinite — definiteness 
being rather the exception than the rule ; and that they 
are manifestly in part determined by surrounding physical 
circumstances, as the forms of societies are. If, too, it 
should eventually be shown, as we believe it will, that the 
form of every species of organism has resulted from the 
average play of the external forces to which it has been 
subject during its evolution as a species; then, that the 
external forms of societies should depend, as they do, 



398 THE SOCIAL OBGANI8M. 

on surrounding conditions, will be a further point of con* 
munity. 

2. That though the living tissue whereof an individual 
organism consists, forms a continuous mass, the living ele- 
ments of a society do not form a continuous mass ; but are 
more or less widely dispersed over some portion of the 
Earth's surface. This, which at first sight appears to be a 
fundamental distinction, is one which yet to a great extent 
disappears when we contemplate all the facts. For, in the 
lower divisions of the animal and vegetal kingdoms, there 
are types of organization much more nearly allied, in this 
respect, to the organization of a society, than might be sup- 
posed — types in which the living units essentially compos- 
ing the mass, are dispersed through an inert substance, 
that can scarcely be called living in the full sense of the 
word. It is thus with some of the Protococci and with the 
N'ostocecB, which exist as cells imbedded in a viscid matter. 
It is so, too, with the Thalassicollw — bodies that are made 
up of differentiated parts, dispersed through an undifferenti- 
ated jelly. And throughout considerable portions of their 
bodies, some of the Acalephce exhibit more or less distinct- 
ly this type of structure. 

Indeed, it may be contended that this is the primitive 
form of all organization ; seeing that, even in the highest 
creatures, as in ourselves, every tissue developes out of 
what physiologists call a blastema — an unorganized though 
organizable substance, through which organic points are 
distributed. Now this is very much the case with a 
society. For we must remember that though the men 
who make up a society, are physically separate and even 
scattered; yet that the surface over which they are scatter- 
ed is not one devoid of life, but is covered by life of a lower 
order which ministers to their life. The vegetation which 
clothes a country, makes possible the animal life in that 
country ; and only through its animal and vegetal products 



CONTRASTS WITH THE VITAL ORGANISM. 399 

can such a country support a human society. Hence the 
members of the body politic are not to be regarded aa 
separated by intervals of dead space ; but as diffused 
through a space occupied by life of a lower order. In our 
conception of a social organism, we must include all that 
lower organic existence on which human existence, and 
therefore social existence, depends. And when we do 
this, we see that the citizens who make up a community, 
may be considered as highly vitalized units surrounded 
by substances of lower vitality, from which they draw 
their nutriment : much as in the cases above instanced. 
Thus, when examined, this apparent distinction in great 
part disappears. 

3. That while the ultimate living elements of an indi- 
vidual organism, are mostly fixed in their relative positions, 
those of the social organism are capable of moving from 
place to place, seems a marked disagreement. But here, 
too, the disagreement is much less than would be supposed. 
For while citizens are locomotive in their private capacities, 
they are fixed in their public capacities. As farmers, man- 
ufacturers, or traders, men carry on their business at the 
same spots, often throughout their whole lives ; and if they 
go away occasionally, they leave behind others to discharge 
their functions in their absence. Each great centre of pro- 
duction, each manufacturing town or district, continues 
always in the same place ; and many of the firms in such 
town or district, are for generations carried on either by 
the descendants or successors of those who founded them. 
Just as in a living body, the cells that make up some im- 
portant organ, severally perform their functions for a time 
and then disappear, leaving others to supply their places ; 
so, in each part of a society, the organ remains, though the 
persons who compose it change. Thus, in social life, aa 
in the life of an animal, the units as well as the larger 
agencies formed of them, are in the main stationary as 



400 THE SOCIAL OEGAJSTISM. 

respects the places where they discharge their duties and 
obtain their sustenance. And hence the power of indivi' 
dual locomotion does not practically affect the analogy. 

4. The last and perhaps the most important distinction, 
is, that while in the body of an animal, only a special ti'ssue 
is endowed with feeling ; in a society, all the members are 
endowed with feeling. Even this distinction, however, is 
by no means a complete one. For in some of the lowest 
animals, characterized by the absence of a nervous system, 
such sensitiveness as exists is possessed by all parts. It is 
only in the more organized forms that feeling is monopo- 
lized by one class of the vital elements. Moreover, we 
must remember that societies, too, are not without a cer- 
tain differentiation of this kind. Though the units of a 
community are all sensitive, yet they are so in unequal de- 
grees. The classes engaged in agriculture and laborious 
occupations in general, are much less susceptible, intellec- 
tually and emotionally, than the rest ; and especially less so 
than the classes of highest mental culture. Still, we have 
here a tolerably decided contrast between bodies politic 
and individual bodies. And it is one which we should 
keep constantly in view. For it reminds us that while in 
individual bodies, the welfare of all other parts is rightly 
subservient to the welfare of the nervous system, whose 
pleasurable or painful activities make up the good or evil 
of life ; in bodies politic, the same thing does not hold, or 
holds to but a very slight extent. It is well that the lives 
of all parts of an animal should be merged in the life of the 
whole ; because the whole has a corporate consciousness 
capable of happiness or misery. But it is not so with a 
society ; since its living units do not and cannot lose indi- 
vidual consciousness ; and since the community as a whole 
has no corporate consciousness. And this is an everlast- 
ing reason why the welfare of citizens cannot rightly be 
sacrificed to some supposed benefit of the State; but 



EXTENT OF THE ANALOGIES. 401 

why, on the other hand, the State is to be maintained 
solely for the benefit of citizens. The corporate life must 
here be subservient to the lives of the parts ; instead 
of the lives of the parts being subservient to the corpo 
rate life. 

Such, then, are the points of analogy and the points of 
difference. May we not say that the points of difference 
serve but to bring into clearer fight the points of analogy. 
While comparison makes definite the obvious contrasts be- 
tween organisms commonly so called, and the social organ- 
ism ; it shows that even these contrasts are not so decided 
as was to be expected. The indefiniteness of form, the 
discontinuity of the parts, the mobility of the parts, and 
the universal sensitiveness, are not only peculiarities of the 
social organism which have to be stated with considerable 
qualifications ; but they are peculiarities to which the in- 
ferior classes of animals present approximations. Thus we 
find but little to conflict with the all-important analogies. 
That societies slowly augment in mass ; that they progress 
in complexity of structure ; that at the same time their parts 
become more mutually dependent ; that their living units 
are removed and replaced without destroying their in- 
tegrity ; and further, that the extents to which they dis- 
play these peculiarities are proportionate to their vital ac- 
tivities; are traits that societies have in common with 
organic bodies. And these traits in which they agree with 
organic bodies and disagree with all other things — these 
traits which in truth specially characterize organic bodies, 
entirely subordinate the minor distinctions : such distinc- 
tions being scarcely greater than those which separate one 
half of the organic kingdom from the other. The princi' 
pies of organization are the same ; and the differences are 
giraply differences of application. 

Here ending this general survey of the facts which 
justify the comparison of a society to a living body ; 



402 THE SOCIAL ORGANISM. 

let us look at them in detail. We shall find that the 
parallelism becomes the more marked the more closely 
it is traced. 

The lowest animal and vegetal forms — Protozoa and 
Protophyta — are chiefly inhabitants of the water. They 
are minute bodies, most of which are made individually 
visible only by the microscope. All of them are extremely 
simple in structure ; and some of them, as the Bhizopods, 
almost structureless. Multiplying, as they ordinarily do, 
by the sjDontaneous division of their bodies, they produce 
halves, which may either become quite separate and move 
away in different directions, or may continue attached. 
By the repetition of this process of fission, aggregations of 
various sizes and kinds are formed. Among the Proto- 
phyta we have some classes, as the Diatomacece and the 
Yeast-plant, in which the individuals may be either sepa- 
rate, or attached in groups of two, three, four, or more ; 
other classes in which a considerable number of individual 
cells are united into a thread ( Conferva, Monilia) ; others 
in which they form a net work {Hydrodictyon) ; others in 
which they form plates ( Ulva) ; and others in which they 
form masses (Laminaria, Agaricus) : all which vegetal 
forms, having no distinction of root, stem, or leaf, are called 
Thallogens. Among the Protozoa we find parallel facts. 
Immense numbers of Amwba-like creatures, massed togeth- 
er in a framework of horny fibres, constitute Sponge. In 
the Pbraminifera, we see smaller groups of such creatures 
arranged into more definite shapes. Not only do these 
almost structureless Protozoa unite into regular or irregu- 
lar aggregations of various sizes; but among some. of the 
more organized ones, as the Vorticellai, there are also pro- 
duced clusters of individuals, proceeding from a common 
stock. But these little societies of monads, or cells, or 
whatever else we may call them, are societies only in the 



ANALOGIES AMONG INFERIOR STRUCTURES. 403 

towest sense : there is no subordination of parts among 
them — no organization. Each of the component units 
lives by and for itself; neither giving nor receiving aid. 
There is no mutual dependence, save that consequent on 
mere mechanical union. 

Now do we not here discern analogies to the first 
stages of human societies ? Among the lowest races, as the 
Bushmen, we find but incipient aggregation : sometimes 
single families ; sometimes. two or three families wandering 
about together. The number of associated units is small 
and variable : and their union inconstant. No division of 
labour exists except between the sexes ; and the only kind 
of mutual aid is that of joint attack or defence. We see 
nothing beyond an undifferentiated group of individuals, 
forming the germ of a society ; just as in the homogeneous 
groups of cells above described, we see only the initial stage 
of animal and vegetal organization. 

The comparison may now be carried a step higher. In 
the vegetal kingdom we pass from the Thallogens, consist- 
ing of mere masses of similar cells, to the Acrogens, in 
which the cells are not similar throughout the whole mass ; 
but are here aggregated into a structure serving as leaf, 
and there into a structure serving as root : thus forming a 
whole in which there is a certain subdivision of functions 
among the units ; and therefore a certain mutual dependence. 
In the animal kingdom we find analogous progress. From 
mere unorganized groups of cells, or cell-like bodies, we 
ascend to groups of such cells arranged into parts that 
have different duties. The common Polype, from whose 
substance may be separated individual cells which exhibit, 
when detached, appearances and movements like those of 
the solitary Amceba, illustrates this stage. The compo 
nent units, though still showing great community of char- 
acter, assume somewhat diverse functions in the skin, in 
the internal surface, and in the tentacles. There is a cer 
fcain amount of " physiological division of labour.' ' 



404 THE SOCIAL OEGANISM. 

Turning to societies, we find these stages paralleled in tha 
majority of aboriginal tribes. When, instead of such small 
variable groups as are formed by Bushmen, we come to 
the larger and more permanent groups formed by savages 
not quite so low, we begin to find traces of social structure. 
Though industrial organization scarcely shows itself, except 
in the different occupations of the sexes ; yet there is always 
more or less of governmental organization. While all the 
men are warriors and hunters, only a part of them are in- 
cluded in the council of chiefs ; and in this council of chiefs 
some one has commonly supreme authority. There is thus 
a certain distinction of classes and powers ; and through 
this slight specialization of functions, is effected a rude co- 
operation among the increasing mass of individuals, when- 
ever the society has to act in its corporate capacity. Be- 
yond this analogy in the slight extent to which organiza- 
tion is carried, there is analogy in the indefiniteness of the 
organization. In the JZydra, the respective parts of the 
creature's substance have many functions in common. 
They are all contractile ; omitting the tentacles, the whole 
of the external surface can give origin to young hydrce ; 
and when turned inside out, stomach performs the duties 
of shin, and skin the duties of stomach. In aboriginal so- 
cieties such differentiations as exist are similarly imperfect. 
Notwithstanding distinctions of rank, all persons maintain 
themselves by their own exertions. Not only do the head 
men of the tribe, in common with the rest, build their own 
huts, make their own weapons, kill their own food ; but 
the chief does the like. Moreover, in the rudest of these 
tribes, such governmental organization as exists is very in- 
constant. It is frequently changed by violence or treach- 
ery, and the function of ruling assumed by other members 
of the community. Thus between the rudest societies and 
some of the lowest forms of animal life there is analogy 
alike in the slight extent to which organization is cai-ried, 



rAKALLEL PB0CES8ES OF MULTIPLICATION. 405 

m the indefiniteness of this organization, and in its want of 
fixity. 

A further complication of the analogy is at hand. 
From the aggregation of units into organized groups, we 
pass to the multiplication of such groups, and their coales- 
cence into compound groups. The Hydra, when it has 
reached a certain bulk, puts forth from its surface a tud, 
which, growing and gradually assuming the form of the 
parent, finally becomes detached ; and by this process of 
gemmation, the creature peoples the adjacent water with 
others like itself. A parallel process is seen in the multipli- 
cation of those lowly-organized tribes above described. 
One of them having increased to a size that is either too 
great for co-ordination under so rude a structure, or else 
that is greater than the surrounding country can supply 
with game and other wild food, there arises a tendency to 
divide ; and as in such communities there are ever occur- 
ring quarrels, jealousies, and other causes of division, there 
soon comes an occasion on which a part of the tribe sepa- 
rates under the leadership of some subordinate chief, and 
migrates. This process being from time to time repeated, 
an extensive region is at length occupied with numerous 
separate tribes descended from a common ancestry. The 
analogy by no means ends here. Though in the common 
Hydra, the young ones that bud out from the parent soon 
become detached and independent ; yet throughout the 
rest of the class Hydrozoa, to which this creature belongs, 
the like does not generally happen. The successive indi- 
viduals thus developed continue attached ; give origin to 
other such individuals which also continue attached ; and 
so there results a compound animal. As in the Hydra 
itself, we find an aggregation of units which, considered 
separately, are akin to the lowest Protozoa ; so here, in a 
Zoophyte, we find an aggregation of such aggregations. 
The like is also seen throughout the extensive family 0/ 



406 THE SOCIAL OKGANISM. 

Polyzoa or Molluscoida. The Ascidian Mollusks, too, in 
their many varied forms, show us the same thing : exhibit- 
ing, at the same time, various degrees of union subsisting 
among the component individuals. For while in the Salpce 
the component individuals adhere so slightly that a blow on 
the vessel of water in which they are floating will separate 
them ; in the Botryllidce there exists a vascular connexion 
between them, and a common circulation. 

Now in these various forms and degrees of aggregation, 
may we not see paralleled the union of groups of connate 
tribes into nations ? Though in regions where circum- 
stances pei-mit, the separate tribes descended from some 
original tribe, migrate in all directions, and become far re- 
moved and quite separate ; yet, in other cases, where the 
territory presents barriers to distant migration, this does 
not happen : the small kindred communities are held in 
closer contact, and eventually become more or less united 
into a nation. The contrast between the tribes of Ameri- 
can Indians and the Scottish clans, illustrates this. And a 
glance at our own early history, or the early histories of 
continental nations, shows this fusion of small simple com- 
munities taking place in various ways and to various extents. 
As says M. Guizot, in his history of " The Origin of Rep- 
resentative Government," — 

" By degrees, in the midst of the chaos of the rising society, 
small aggregations are formed which feel the want of alliance and 
union with each other. . . . Soon inequality of strength is 
displayed among neighbouring aggregations. The strong tend to 
subjugate the weak, and usurp at first the rights of taxation and 
military service. Thus political authority leaves the aggregations 
which first instituted it, to take a wider range." 

That is to say, the small tribes, clans, or feudal unions, 
sprung mostly from a common stock, and long held in con- 
tact as occupants of adjacent lands, gradually get united in 
other ways than by mere adhesion of race and proximity. 



SIMILARITY OF GROUPINGS. 407 

A further series of changes begins now to take place ; to 
which, as before, we shall find analogies in individual or- 
ganisms. Returning again to the Mydrozoa, we observe 
that in the simplest of the compound forms, the connected 
individuals developed from a common stock, are alike in 
structure, and perform like functions : with the exception, 
indeed, that here and there a bud, instead of developing 
into a stomach, mouth, and tentacles, becomes an egg-sac. 
But with the oceanic Hydrozoa, this is by no means the 
case. In the Calycophoridce, some of the polypes growing 
from the common germ, become developed and modified 
into large, long, sack-like bodies, which by their rhythmi- 
cal contractions move through the water, dragging the 
community of polypes after them. In the Physophoridce, 
a variety of organs similarly arise by transformation of the 
budding polypes ; so that in creatures like the Physalia, 
commonly known as the " Portuguese Man-of-war," instead 
of that tree-like group of similar individuals forming the 
original type of the class, we have a complex mass of unlike 
parts fulfilling unlike duties. As an individual Hydra may 
be regarded as a group of Protozoa, which have become 
partially metamorphosed into different organs ; so a Phy- 
salia is, morphologically considered, a group of Hydroz of 
which the individuals have been variously transformed to 
fit them for various functions. 

This differentiation upon differentiation, is just what 
takes place in the evolution of a civilized society. We ob- 
served how, in the small communities first formed, there 
arises a certain simple political organization — there is a 
partial separation of classes having different duties. And 
now we have to observe how, in a nation formed by the 
fusion of such small communities, the several sections, at 
first alike in structures and modes of activity, gradually 
become unlike in both — gradually become mutually-de- 
pendent parts, diverse in their natures and functions. 
19 



408 THE SOCIAL ORGANISM. 

The doctrine of the progressive division of labour, tfl 
which we are here introduced, is familiar to all readers. 
And further, the analogy between the economical division 
of labour and the " physiological division of labour," is so 
striking, as long since to have drawn the attention of sci- 
entific naturalists : so striking, indeed, that the expression 
" physiological division of labour," has been suggested by 
it. It is not needful, therefore, that we should treat this 
part of our subject in great detail. We shall content our- 
selves with noting a few general and significant facts, not 
manifest on a first inspection. 

Throughout the whole animal kingdom, from the Cce- 
lenterata upwards, the first stage of evolution is the same. 
Equally in the germ of a polype and in the human ovum, 
the aggregated mass of cells out of which the creature is 
to arise, gives origin to a peripheral layer of cells, slightly 
differing from the rest which they include ; and this layer 
subsequently divides into two — the inner, lying in contact 
with the included yelk, being called the mucous layer, and 
the outer, exposed to surrounding agencies, being called 
the serous layer : or, in the terms used by Prof. Huxley, in 
describing the development of the Sydrozoa — the endo- 
derm and ectoderm. This primary division marks out a 
fundamental contrast of parts in the future organism. 
From the mucous layer, or endoderm, is developed the 
apparatus of nutrition ; while from the serous layer, or ec- 
toderm, is developed the apparatus of external action. 
Out of the one arise the organs by which food is prepared 
and absorbed, oxygen imbibed, and blood purified ; while 
out of the other arise the nervous, muscular, and osseous 
systems, by whose combined actions the movements of the 
body as a whole are effected. Though this is not a rigor- 
ously-correct distinction, seeing that some organs involve 
both of these primitive membranes, yet high authorities 
agree in stating it as a broad general distinction. 



ITS PRIMARY DIFFEREx^JTIATIONS. 409 

Well, in the evolution of a society, we see a primary 
differentiation of analogous kind ; which similarly underlies 
the whole future structure. As already pointed out, the 
only manifest contrast of parts in primitive societies, is that 
between the governing and the governed. In the least or- 
ganized tribes, the council of chiefs may be a body of men 
distinguished simply by greater courage or experience. In 
more organized tribes, the chief-class is definitely separated 
from the lower class, and often regarded as different in na- 
ture — sometimes as god-descended. And later, we find 
these two becoming respectively freemen and slaves, or 
nobles and serfs. A glance at their respective functions, 
makes it obvious that the great divisions thus early formed, 
stand to each other in a relation similar to that in which 
the primary divisions of the embryo stand to each other. 
For, from its first appearance, the class of chiefs is that by 
which the external acts of the society are controlled : alike 
in war, in negotiation, and in migration. Afterwards, 
while the upper class grows distinct from the lower, and at 
the same time becomes more and more exclusively regula- 
tive and defensive in its functions, alike in the persons of 
kings and subordinate rulers, priests, and military leaders ; 
the inferior class becomes more and more exclusively occu- 
pied in providing the necessaries of life for the community 
at large. From the soil, with which it comes in most di- 
rect contact, the mass of the people takes up and prepares 
for use, the food and such rude articles of manufacture as 
are known ; while the overlying mass of superior men, 
maintained by the working population, deals with circum- 
stances external to the community — circumstances with 
which, by position, it is * more immediately concerned. 
Ceasing by-and-by to have any knowledge of, or power 
over, the concerns of the society as a whole, the serf-class 
becomes devoted to the processes of alimentation; while 
the noble class, ceasing to take any part in the processes of 



410 THE SOCIAL OEGANISM. 

alimentation, becomes devoted to the co-ordinated move- 
ments of the entire body politic. 

Equally remarkable is a further analogy of like kind. 
After the mucous and serous layers of the embryo have 
separated, there presently arises between the two, a third, 
known to physiologists as the vascular layer — a layer out 
of which are developed the chief blood-vessels. The mu- 
cous layer absorbs nutriment from the mass of yelk it en- 
closes ; this nutriment has to be transferred to the overly- 
ing serous layer, out of which the nervo-muscular system 
is being developed ; and between the two arises a vascular 
system by which the transfer is effected — a system of ves- 
sels which continues ever after to be the transferrer of nu- 
triment from the places where it is absorbed and prepared, 
to the places where it is needed for growth and repair. 
Well, may we not trace a parallel step in social progress ? 

Between the governing and the governed, there at first 
exists no intermediate class ; and even in some societies 
that have reached considerable sizes, there are scarcely any 
but the nobles and their kindred on the one hand, and the 
serfs on the other : the social structure being such, that the 
transfer of commodities takes place directly from slaves to 
their masters. But in societies of a higher type, there 
grows up between these two primitive classes, another — 
the trading or middle class. Equally, at first as now, wo 
may see that, speaking generally, this middle class is the 
analogue of the middle layer in the embryo. For all tra- 
ders are essentially distributors. Whether they be whole- 
sale dealers, who collect into large masses the commodities 
of various producers ; or whether they be retailers, who 
divide out to those who want them, the masses of com- 
modities thus collected together ; all mercantile men are 
agents of transfer from the places where things are pro- 
duced to the places where they are consumed. Thus the 
distributing apparatus of a society, answers to the distribu 



ANALOGOUS DISTRIBUTION OF MECHANISMS. 411 

ting apparatus of a living "body ; not only in its functions, 
but in its intermediate origin and subsequent position, and 
in the time of its a]3pearance. 

Without enumerating the minor differentiations which 
these three great classes afterwards undergo, we will 
merely note that throughout, they follow the same general 
law with the differentiations of an individual organism. In 
a society, as in a rudimentary animal, we have seen that the 
most general and broadly contrasted divisions are the first 
to make their appearance ; and of the subdivisions it con- 
tinues true in both cases, that they arise in the order of de- 
creasing generality. 

Let us observe next, that in the one case as in the oth- 
er, the specializations are at first very incomplete ; and be- 
come more complete as organization progresses. We saw 
that in primitive tribes, as in the simplest animals, there 
remains much community of function between the parts 
that are nominally different — that, for instance, the class of 
chiefs long remain industrially the same as the inferior 
class ; just as in a Hydra, the property of contractility is 
possessed by the units of the endoderm as well as by those 
of the ectoderm. We noted also how, as the society ad- 
vanced, the two great primitive classes partook less and 
less of each other's functions. And we have here to re- 
mark, that all subsequent specializations are at first vague, 
and gradually become distinct. " In the infancy of socie- 
ty," says M. Guizot, " everything is confused and uncer- 
tain ; there is as yet no fixed and precise line of demarca- 
tion between the different powers in a state." " Origi- 
nally kings lived like other landowners, on the incomes de- 
rived from their own private estates." Nobles were petty 
kings ; and kings only the most powerful nobles. Bishops 
were feudal lords and military leaders. The right of coin- 
ing money was possessed by powerful subjects, and by the 
Church, as well as by the king. Every leading man exer 



412 THE SOCIAL OKGAJSTISM. 

cised alike the functions of landowner, farmer, soldier, 
statesman, judge. Retainers were now soldiers, and now 
labourers, as the day required. But by degrees the 
Church has lost all civil jurisdiction ; the State has exer- 
cised less and less control over religious teaching ; the mil- 
itary class has grown a distinct one ; handicrafts have con- 
centrated in towns ; and the spinning-wheels of scattered 
farmhouses, have disappeared before the machinery of man- 
ufacturing districts. Not only is all progress from the ho- 
mogeneous to the heterogeneous ; but at the same time it 
is from the indefinite to the definite. 

Another fact which should not be passed over, is that in 
the evolution of a large society out of an aggregation of small 
ones, there is a gradual obliteration of the original lines of 
separation — a change to which, also, we may see analogies 
in living bodies. Throughout the sub-kingdom Annulosa, 
this is clearly and variously illustrated. Among the lower 
types of this sub-kingdom, the body consists of numerous 
segments that are alike in nearly every particular. Each 
has its external ring ; its pair of legs, if the creature has 
legs ; its equal portion of intestines, or else its separate 
stomach ; its equal portion of the great blood-vessel, or, in 
some cases, its separate heart ; its equal portion of the ner- 
vous cord, and, perhaps, its separate pair of ganglia. But 
in the highest types, as in the large Crustacea, many of 
the segments are completely fused together ; and the internal 
organs are no longer uniformly repeated in all the segments. 
Now the segments of which nations at first consist, lose their 
separate external and internal structures in a similar manner. 
In feudal times, the minor communities governed by feudal 
lords, were severally organized in the same rude way ; and 
were held together only by the fealty of their respective 
rulers to some suzerain. But along with the growth of a 
central power, the demarcations of these local communities 
disappeared ; and their separate organizations merged into 



COALESCENCE OF PARTS. 413 

the general organization. The like is seen on a larger scale 
in the fusion of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland ; and, 
on the Continent, in the coalescence of provinces into king- 
doms. Even in the disappearance of law-made divisions, 
the process is analogous. Among the Anglo-Saxons, Eng- 
land was divided into tithings, hundreds, and counties : 
there were county courts, courts of hundred, and courts of 
tithing. The courts of tithing disappeared first ; then the 
courts of hundred, which have, however, left traces ; while 
the county-jurisdiction still exists. 

But chiefly it is to be noted, that there eventually grows 
up an organization which has no reference to these original 
divisions, but traverses them in various directions, as is the 
case in creatures belonging to the sub-kingdom just named ; 
and, further, that in both cases it is the sustaining organiza- 
tion which thus traverses old boundaries, while in both 
cases it is the governmental, or co-ordinating organization 
in which the original boundaries continue traceable. Thus, 
in the highest Annulosa, the exo-skeleton and the muscu- 
lar system, never lose all traces of their primitive segmen- 
tation ; but throughout a great part of the body, the con- 
tained viscera do not in the least conform to the external 
divisions. Similarly, with a nation, we see that while, for 
governmental purposes, such divisions as counties and par- 
ishes still exist, the structure developed for carrying on the 
nutrition of society, wholly ignores these boundaries: our 
great cotton-manufacture spreads out of Lancashire into 
North Derbyshire ; Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire 
have long divided the stocking-trade between then? ; one 
great centre for the production of iron and iron-goods, in- 
cludes parts of Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire ; 
and those various specializations of agriculture which have 
made different parts of England noted for different pro- 
ducts, show no more respect to county-boundaries than 
do our growing towns to the boundaries of parishes. 



4:14: THE SOCIAL OKGASttSM. 

If, after contemplating these analogies of structure, we 
inquire whether there are any such analogies between the 
processes of organic change, the answer is — yes. The 
causes which lead to increase of bulk in any part of the 
body politic, are of like nature with those which lead to 
increase of bulk in any part of an individual body. In 
both cases the antecedent is greater functional activity, con- 
sequent on greater demand. Each limb, viscus, gland, or 
other member of an animal, is developed by exercise — by 
actively discharging the duties which the body at large re- 
quires of it ; and similarly, any class of labourers or arti- 
sans, any manufacturing centre, or any official agency, begins 
to enlarge when the community devolves on it an increase 
of work. In each case, too, growth has its conditions and 
its limits. That any organ in a living being may grow 
by exercise, there needs a due supply of blood : all ac- 
tion implies waste; blood brings the materials for re- 
pair ; and before there can be growth, the quantity of 
blood supplied must be more than that requisite for re- 
pair. 

So is it in a society. If to some district which elabor- 
ates for the community particular commodities — say the 
woollens of Yorkshire — there comes an augmented demand ; 
and if, in fulfilment of this demand, a certain expenditure 
and wear of the manufacturing organization are incurred ; 
and if, in payment for the extra supply of woollens sent 
away, there comes back only such quantity of commodities 
as replaces the expenditure, and makes good the waste of 
life and machinery ; there can clearly be no growth. That 
there may be growth, the commodities obtained in return 
must be more than sufficient for these ends ; and just in 
proportion as the surplus is great will the growth be rapid. 
Whence it is manifest that what in commercial affairs we 
call profit, answers to the excess of nutrition over waste in 
a living body. Moreover, in both cases, when the func- 



PARALLEL CONDITIONS OF NUTRITION. 415 

tional activity is high and the nutrition defective, there re- 
sults not growth hut decay. If in an animal, any organ ia 
worked so hard that the channels which bring blood cannot 
furnish enough for repair, the organ dwindles ; and if in the 
body politic, some part has been stimulated into great pro* 
ductivity, and cannot afterwards get paid for all its produce, 
certain of its members become bankrupt, and it decreases 
in size. 

One more parallelism to be here noted, is, that the dif- 
ferent parts of the social organism, like the different parts 
of an individual organism, compete for nutriment ; and 
severally obtain more or less of it according as they are 
discharging more or less duty. If a man's brain be over- 
excited, it will abstract blood from his viscera and stop 
digestion ; or digestion actively going on, will so affect tne 
circulation through the brain as to cause drowsiness ; or 
great muscular exertion will determine such a quantity of 
blood to the limbs, as to arrest digestion or cerebral action, 
as the case may be. So, likewise, in a society, it frequent- 
ly happens that great activity in some one direction, causes 
partial arrests of activity elsewhere, by abstracting capital, 
that is commodities : as instance the way in which the sud- 
den development of our railway-system hampered commer- 
cial operations : or the way in which the raising of a lai'ge 
military force temporarily stops the growth of leading in- 
dustries. 

The last few paragraphs introduce the next division of 
our subject. Almost unawares we have come upon the 
analogy which exists between the blood of a living body, 
and the circulating mass of commodities in the body politic. 
We have now to trace out this analogy from its simplest to 
its most complex manifestations. 

In the lowest animals there exists no blood properly so 
called. Through the small aggregation of cells which make 



416 THE SOCIAL ORGANISM 

up a Hydra, permeate the juices absorbed from the food. 
There is no apparatus for elaborating a concentrated and 
purified nutriment, and distributing it among the compo- 
nent units ; but these component units directly imbibe the 
unprepared nutriment, either from the digestive cavity or 
from each other. May we not say that this is what takes 
place in an aboriginal tribe ? All its members severally 
obtain for themselves the necessaries of life in their crude 
states ; and severally prepare them for their own uses as 
well as they can. When there arises a decided differentia- 
tion between the governing and the governed, some 
amount of transfer begins between those inferior indi- 
viduals, who, as workers, come directly in contact with the 
products of the earth, and those superior ones who exer- 
cise the higher functions — a transfer parallel to that which 
accompanies the differentiation of the ectoderm from the 
endoderm. In the one case, as in the other, however, it 
is a transfer of products that are little if at all prepared ; 
and takes place directly from the unit which obtains to 
the unit which consumes, without entering into any general 
current. 

Passing to larger organisms — individual and social — we 
find the first advance upon this arrangement. Where, as 
among the compound Hydrozoa, there is an aggregation 
of many such primitive groups as form Hydrw ; or where, 
as in a Mtdusa, one of these groups has become of great 
size ; there exist rude channels running throughout the 
substance of the body : not however, channels for the con- 
veyance of prepared nutriment, but mere prolongations of 
the digestive cavity, through which the crude chyle-aque- 
ous fluid reaches the remoter parts, and is moved back- 
wards and forwards by the creature's contractions. Do we 
not find in some of the more advanced primitive communi- 
ties, an analogous condition ? When the men, partially or 
fully united into one society, become numerous— when, as 



ANALOGY OF THE LOWER, CIRCULATIONS. 417 

usually happens, they cover a surface of country not every- 
where alike in its products — when, more especially, there 
arise considerable classes that are not industrial; some pro- 
cess of exchange and distribution inevitably arises. Trav- 
ersing here and there the earth's surface, covered by that 
vegetation on which human life depends, and in which, aa 
we say, the units of a society are imbedded, there are 
formed indefinite paths, along which some of the necessa- 
ries of life occasionally pass, to be bartered for others 
which presently come back along the same channels. Note, 
however, that at first little else but crude commodities are 
thus transferred — fruits, fish, pigs or cattle, skins, etc. : 
there are few, if any, manufactured products or articles 
prepared for consumption. And note further, that such" 
distribution of these unprepared necessaries of life as takes 
place, is but occasional — goes on with a certain slow, irregu- 
lar rhythm. 

Further progress in the elaboration and distribution of 
nutriment, or of commodities, is a necessary accompani- 
ment of further differentiation of functions in the indivi- 
dual body or in the body politic. As fast as each organ of 
a living animal becomes confined to a special action, it must 
become dependent on the rest for all those materials which 
its position and duty do not permit it to obtain for itself; 
in the same way that, as fast as each particular class of a 
community becomes exclusively occupied in producing its 
own commodity, it must become dependent on the rest foi 
the other commodities it needs. And, simultaneously, a 
more perfectly-elaborated blood will result from a highly- 
specialized group of nutritive organs, severally adapted to 
prepare its different elements ; in the same way that the 
stream of commodities circulating throughout a society, 
will be of superior quality in proportion to the greater di- 
vision of labour among the workers. Observe, also, that 
in either case the circulating mass of nutritive materials, 



418 THE SOCIAL ORGANISM. 

besides coming gradually to consist of better ingredients, 
also grows more complex. An increase in the number of 
the unlike organs which add to the blood their waste mat- 
ters, and demand from it the different materials they sev- 
erally need, implies a blood more heterogeneous in compo* 
sition — an a priori conclusion which, according to Dr. 
Williams, is inductively confirmed by examination of the 
blood throughout the various grades of the animal king- 
dom. And similarly, it is manifest that as fast as the 
division of labour among the classes of a community, 
becomes greater, there must be an increasing heteroge- 
neity in the currents of merchandise flowing throughout 
that community. 

The circulating mass of nutritive materials in individual 
organisms and in social organisms, becoming alike better in 
the quality of its ingredients and more heterogeneous in 
composition, as the type of structure becomes higher; 
eventually has added to it in both cases another element, 
which is not itself nutritive, but facilitates the process of 
nutrition. We refer, in the case of the individual organ- 
ism, to the blood-discs ; and in the case of the social or- 
ganism, to money. This analogy has been observed by 
Liebig, who in his " Familiar Letters on Chemistry," 
says : 

" Silver and gold have to perform in the organization of the 
State, the same function as the blood corpuscles in the human 
organization. As these round discs, without themselves taking an 
immediate share in the nutritive process, are the medium, the 
essential condition of the change of matter, of the production of 
the heat, and of the force by which the temperature of the bodv 
is kept up and the motions of the blood and all the juices are de- 
termined, so has gold become the medium of all activity in the life 
of the State." 

And blood-corpuscles being like money in their func- 
tions, and in the fact that they are not consumed in nutri- 



ANALOGY BETWEEN THE CIRCULATIONS. 419 

tion, he further points out, that the number of them which 
in a considerable interval flows through the great centres, 
is enormous when compared with their absolute number ; 
just as the quantity of money which annually passes 
through the great mercantile centres, is enormous when 
compared with the total quantity of money in the kingdom. 
Nor is this all. Liebig has omitted the significant circum- 
stance, that only at a certain stage of organization does this 
element of the circulation make its appearance. Through- 
out extensive divisions of the lower animals, the blood con- 
tains no corpuscles ; and in societies of low civilization, 
there is no money. 

Thus far, we have considered the analogy between the 
blood in a living body and the consumable and circulating 
commodities in the body politic. Let us now compare the 
appliances by which they are respectively distributed. We 
shall find in the development of these appliances, parallel- 
isms not less remarkable than those above set forth. Al- 
ready we have shown that, as classes, wholesale and retail 
distributors discharge in a society, the office which the 
vascular system discharges in an individual creature ; that 
they come into existence later than the other two great 
classes, as the vascular layer appears later than the mucous 
and serous layers ; and that they occupy a like intermedi- 
ate position. Here, however, it remains to be pointed out 
that a complete conception of the circulating system in a 
society, includes not only the active human agents who 
propel the currents of commodities, and regulate their dis- 
tribution ; but includes, also, the channels of communication. 
It is the formation and arrangement of these, to which we 
now direct attention. 

Going back once more to those lower animals in which 
there is found nothing but a partial diffusion, not of blood, 
but only of crude nutritive fluids, it is to be remarked that 
the channels through which the diffusion takes place, are 



420 THE SOCIAL ORGANISM. 

mere excavations through the half-organized substance of 
the body : they have no lining membranes, but are mere 
lacunae traversing a rude tissue. Now countries in which 
civilization is but commencing, display a like condition : 
there are no roads properly so called ; but the wilderness 
of vegetal life covering the earth's surface, is pierced by 
tracks, through which the distribution of crude commodi- 
ties takes place. And while in both cases, the acts of dis- 
tribution occur only at long intervals (the currents, after a 
pause, now setting towards a general centre, and now 
away from it), the transfer is in both cases slow and difficult. 
But among other accompaniments of progress, common to 
animals and societies, comes the formation of more definite 
and complete channels of communication. Blood-vessels 
acquire distinct walls ; roads are fenced and gravelled. 
This advance is first seen in those roads or vessels that are 
nearest to the chief centres of distribution ; while the peri- 
pheral roads and peripheral vessels, long continue in their 
primitive states. At a yet later stage of development, 
where comparative finish of structure is found throughout 
the system as well as near the chief centres, there remains 
in both cases the difference, that the main channels are 
comparatively broad and straight, while the subordinate 
ones are narrow and tortuous in proportion to their re- 
moteness. 

Lastly, it is to be remarked that there ultimately arise 
in the higher social organisms, as in the higher individual 
organisms, main channels of distribution still more distin- 
guished by their perfect structures, their comparative 
straightness, and the absence of those small branches which 
the minor channels perpetually give off. And in railways 
we also see, for the first time in the social organism, a 
specialization with respect to the directions of the currents 
— a system of double channels conveying currents in oppo- 
site directions, as do the arteries and veins of a well-devel- 
oped animal. 



DEVELOPMENT OF CIBCULATOKY CHANNELS. 421 

These parallelisms in the evolutions and structures of 
tue circulating systems, introduce us to others in the kinda 
and rates of the movements going on through them. In 
the lowest societies, as in the lowest creatures, the distri- 
bution of crude nutriment is by slow gurgitations and re- 
gurgitations. In creatures that have rude vascular sys 
tems, as in societies that are beginning to have roads and 
some transfer of commodities along them, there is no regu- 
lar circulation in definite courses ; but instead, periodical 
changes of the currents — now towards this point, and now 
towards that. Through each part of an inferior mollusk's 
body, the blood flows for a while in one direction, then 
stops, and flows in the opposite direction ; just as through a 
rudely-organized society, the distribution of merchandise 
is slowly carried on by great fairs, occurring in different 
localities, to and from which the currents periodically set. 
Only animals of tolerably complete organizations, like ad- 
vanced communities, are permeated by constant currents 
that are definitely directed. In living bodies, the local and 
variable currents disappear when there grow up great 
centres of circulation, generating more powerful currents, 
by a rhythm which ends in a quick, regular pulsation. 
And when in social bodies, there arise great centres of 
commercial activity, producing and exchanging large quan- 
tities of commodities, the rapid and continuous streams 
drawn in and emitted by these centres, subdue all minor 
and local circulations : the slow rhythm of fairs merges 
into the faster one of weekly markets, and in the chief cen- 
tres of distribution, weekly markets merge into daily mar- 
kets ; while in place of the languid transfer from place to 
place, taking place at first weekly, then twice or thrice a 
week, we by-and-by get daily transfer, and finally transfer 
many times a day — the original sluggish, irregular rhythm, 
becomes a rapid, equable pulse. 

Mark, too, that in both cases the increased activity, like 



422 THE SOCIAL OEGANISM. 

the greater perfection of structure, is much less conspicu 
ous at the periphery of the vascular system. On main 
lines of railway, we have, perhaps, a score trains in each 
direction daily, going at from thirty to fifty miles an hour ; 
as, through the great arteries, the blood rushes rapidly in 
successive gushes. Along high roads, there move vehicles 
conveying men and commodities with much less, though 
still considerable, speed, and with a much less decided 
rhythm ; as, in the smaller arteries, the speed of the blood 
is greatly diminished, and the pulse less conspicuous. In 
parish-roads, narrow, less complete, and more tortuous, the 
rate of movement is further decreased and the rhythm 
scarcely traceable ; as in the ultimate arteries. In those 
still more imperfect by-roads which lead from these parish- 
roads to scattered farmhouses and cottages, the motion is 
yet slower and very irregular ; just as we find it in the 
capillaries. While along the field-roads, which, in their 
unformed, unfenced state, are typical of lacimce, the move 
rnent is the slowest, the most irregular, and the most infre- 
quent ; as it is, not only in the primitive lacunae of animals, 
and societies, but as it is also in those lacunce in which the 
vascular system ends among extensive families of inferior 
creatures. 

Thus, then, we find between the distributing systems 
of living bodies and the distributing systems of bodies pol- 
itic, wonderfully close parallelisms. In the lowest forms of 
individual and social organisms, there exist neither prepar- 
ed nutritive matters nor distributing appliances; and in 
both, these, arising as necessary accompaniments of the 
differentiation of parts, approach perfection as this differen- 
tiation approaches completeness. In animals, as in socie- 
ties, the distributing agencies begin to show themselves at 
the same relative periods, and in the same relative positions. 
In the one, as in the other, the nutritive materials circula- 
ted, are at first crude and simple, gradually become bettei 



ITS ANALOGIES WITH THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 423 

elaborated and more heterogeneous, and have eventually 
added to them a new element facilitating the nutritive pro- 
cesses. The channels of communication pass through similar 
phases of development, which bring them to analogous 
forms. And the directions, rhythms, and rates of cir- 
culation, progress by like steps to like final conditions. 

We come at length to the nervous system. Having no- 
ticed the primary differentiation of societies into the gov- 
erning and governed classes, and observed its analogy to 
the differentiation of the two primary tissues which respec- 
tively develope into organs of external action and organs 
of alimentation ; having noticed some of the leading anal- 
ogies between the development of industrial arrangements 
and that of the alimentary apparatus ; and having, above, 
more fully traced the analogies between the distributing 
systems, social and individual ; we have now to compare 
the appliances by which a society, as a whole, is regulated, 
with those by which the movements of an individual crea- 
ture are regulated. We shall find here, parallelisms equally 
striking with those already detailed. 

The class out of which governmental organization ori- 
ginates, is, as we have said, analogous in its relations to the 
ectoderm of the lowest animals and of embryonic forms. 
And as this primitive membrane, out of which the nervo- 
muscular system is evolved, must, even in the first stage of 
its differentiation, be slightly distinguished from the rest 
by that greater impressibility and contractility characteriz- 
ing the organs to which it gives rise ; so, in that superior 
class which is eventually transformed into the clirecto-exe- 
cutive system of a society (its legislative and defensive ap- 
pliances), does there exist in the beginning, a larger en- 
dowment of the capacities required for these higher social 
functions. Always, in rude assemblages of men, the strong- 
est, most courageous, and most sagacious, become rulers 



42 4 THE SOCIAL ORGANISM. 

and leaders ; and, in a tribe of some standing, this results 
in the establishment of a dominant class, characterized on 
the average by those mental and bodily qualities which fit 
them for deliberation and vigorous combined action. Thus 
that greater imj>ressibility and contractility, which in the 
rudest animal types characterize the units of the ectoderm, 
characterize also the units of the primitive social ectoderm ; 
since impressibility and contractility are the respective roots 
of intelligence and strength. 

Again, in the unmodified ectoderm, as we see it in the 
Hydra, the units are all endowed both with impressibility 
and contractility ; but as we ascend to higher types of or- 
ganization, the ectoderm differentiates into classes of units 
which divide those two functions between them : some, be- 
coming exclusively impressible, cease to be contractile ; 
while some, becoming exclusively contractile, cease to be 
impressible. Similarly with societies. In an aboriginal 
tribe, the directive and executive functions are diffused in 
a mingled form throughout the whole governing class. 
Each minor chief commands those under him, and if need 
be, himself coerces them into obedience. The council of 
chiefs itself carries out on the battle-field its own decisions. 
The head chief not only makes laws, but administers justice 
with his own hands. In larger and more settled communi- 
ties, however, the directive and executive agencies begin 
to grow distinct from each other. As fast as his duties 
accumulate, the head chief or king confines himself more 
and more to directing public affairs, and leaves the execu 
tion of his will to others : he deputes others to enforce 
submission, to inflict punishments, or to carry out minor 
acts of offence and defence ; and only on occasions when, 
perhaps, the safety of the society and his own supremacy 
are at stake, does he begin to act as well as direct. As 
this differentiation establishes itself, the characteristics of 
the ruler begin to change. No longer, as in an aboriginal 



DIFFERENTIATION OF THE DIRECTIVE FUNCTIONS. 425 

tribe, the strongest and most daring man, the tendency is 
for him to become the man of greatest cunning, foresight, 
and skill in the management of others ; for in societies that 
have advanced beyond the first stage, it is chiefly such 
qualities that insure success in gaining supreme power, and 
holding it against internal and external enemies. Thus that 
member of the governing class who comes to be the chief 
directing agent, and so plays the same part that a rudimen- 
tary nervous centre does in an unfolding organism, is usu- 
ally one endowed with some superiorities of nervous organ- 
ization. 

In those somewhat larger and more complex communi- 
ties possessing, perhaps, a separate military class, a priest- 
hood, and dispersed masses of population requiring local 
control, there necessarily grow up subordinate governing 
agents ; who as their duties accumulate, severally become 
more directive and less executive in their characters. 
And when, as commonly happens, the king begins to 
collect round himself advisers who aid him by commun- 
icating information, preparing subjects for his judgment, 
and issuing his orders ; we may say that the form of 
organization is comparable to one very general among 
inferior types of animals, in which there exists a chief 
ganglion with a few dispersed minor ganglia under its 
control. 

The analogies between the evolution of governmental 
structures in societies, and the evolution of governmental 
structures in living bodies, are, however, more strikingly 
displayed during the formation of nations by the coales- 
cence of small communities — a process already shown to 
be, in several respects, parallel to the development of those 
creatures that primarily consist of many like segments. 
Among other points of community between the successive 
rings which make up the body in the lower Articulata, is 
the possession of similar pairs of ganglia. These pairs of 



426 THE SOCIAL ORGANISM. 

ganglia, though, united together by nerves, are very incom- 
pletely dependent on any general controlling power. Hence 
it results that when the body is cut in two, the hinder part 
continues to move forward under the propulsion of its nu- 
merous legs ; and that when the chain of ganglia has been 
divided without severing the body, the hind limbs may be 
seen trying to propel the body in one direction, while the 
fore limbs are trying to propel it in another. Among the 
higher Articulate^ however, a number of the anterior pairs 
of ganglia, besides growing larger, unite in one mass ; and this 
great cephalic ganglion, becoming the co-ordinator of all the 
creature's movements, there no longer exists much local in 
dependence. 

Now may we not in the growth of a consolidated king- 
dom out of petty sovereignties or baronies, observe analo- 
gous changes ? Like the chiefs and primitive rulers above 
described, feudal lords, exercising supreme power over their 
respective groups of retainers, discharge functions analo- 
gous to those of rudimentary nervous centres; and we 
know that at first they, like their analogues, are distin- 
guished by superiorities of directive and executive organiza- 
tion. Among these local governing centres, there is, in 
early feudal times, very little subordination. They are in 
frequent antagonism; they are individually restrained chief- 
ly by the influence of large parties in their own class ; and 
are but imperfectly and irregularly subject to that most 
powerful member of their order who has gained the posi- 
tion of head suzerain or king. As the growth and organi- 
zation of the society progresses, these local directive cen- 
tres fall more and more under the control- of a chief direc- 
tive centre. Closer commercial union between the several 
segments, is accompanied by closer governmental union; 
and these minor rulers end in being little more than agenta 
who administer, in their several localities, the laws made by 
the supreme ruler : just as the local ganglia above described, 



ANALOGUES OF THE NERVOUS CENTRES. 427 

eventually become agents which enforce, in their respec- 
tive segments, the orders of the cephalic ganglion. 

The parallelism holds still further. We remarked above, 
when speaking of the rise of aboriginal kings, that in pro- 
portion as their territories and duties increase, they are 
obliged not only to perform their executive functions by 
deputy, but also to gather round themselves advisers to aid 
them in their directive functions ; and that thus, in place 
of a solitary governing unit, there grows up a group of 
governing units, comparable to a ganglion consisting of 
many cells. Let us here add, that the advisers and chief 
officers who thus form the rudiment of a ministry, tend 
from the beginning to exercise a certain control over the 
ruler. By the information they give and the opinions they 
express, they sway his judgment and affect his commands. 
To this extent he therefore becomes a channel through 
which are communicated the directions originating with 
them ; and in course of time, when the advice of ministers 
becomes the acknowledged source of his actions, the king 
assumes very much the character of an automatic centre, 
reflecting the impressions made on him from without. 

Beyond this complication of governmental structuie, 
many societies do not progress ; but in some, a further de- 
velopment takes place. Our own case best illustrates this 
further development, and its further analogies. To kings 
and their ministries have been added, in England, other 
great directive centres, exercising a control which, at first 
small, has been gradually becoming predominant : as with 
the great governing ganglia that especially distinguish the 
highest classes of living beings. Strange as the assertion 
will be thought, our Houses of Parliament discharge in th« 
social economy, functions that are in sundry respects com- 
parable to those discharged by the cerebral masses in a 
vertebrate animal. As it is in the nature of a single gan 
glion to be affected only by special stimuli from particular 



428 THE SOCIAL ORGANISM. 

parts of the body ; so it is in the nature of a single rulet 
to be swayed in his acts by exclusive personal or class in- 
terests. As it is in the nature of an aggregation of ganglia, 
connected with the primary one, to convey to it a greater 
variety of influences from more numerous organs, and thu? 
to make its acts conform to more numerous requirements 5 
so it is in the nature of a king surrounded by subsidiary 
controlling powers, to adapt his rule to a greater number 
of public exigencies. And as it is in the nature of those 
great and latest-developed ganglia which distinguish the 
higher animals, to interpret and combine the multiplied 
and varied impressions conveyed to them from all parts of 
the system, and to regulate the actions in such way as duly 
to regard them all ; so it is in the nature of those great 
and latest-developed legislative bodies which distinguish 
the most advanced societies, to interpret and combine the 
wishes and complaints of all classes and localities, and to 
regulate public affairs as much as possible in harmony with 
the general wants. 

The cerebrum co-ordinates the countless heterogeneous 
considerations which affect the present and future welfare 
of the individual as a whole ; and the legislature co-ordi- 
nates the countless heterogeneous considerations which af- 
fect the immediate and remote welfare of the whole com- 
munity. We may describe the office of the brain as that 
of averaging the interests of life, physical, intellectual, 
moral, social ; and a good brain is one in which the desires 
answering to these respective interests are so balanced, 
that the conduct they jointly dictate, sacrifices none of 
them. Similarly, we may describe the office of a Parlia- 
ment as that of averaging the interests of the various 
classes in a community; and a good Parliament is one in 
which the parties answering to these respective interests 
are so balanced, that their united legislation concedes to 
each class as much as consists with the claims of the rest 



FUNCTIONS AND ANALOGUES OF THE CEKEBKUM. 429 

Besides being comparable in their duties, these great di- 
rective centres, social and individual, are comparable in the 
processes by which their duties are dischai'ged. 

It is now an acknowledged truth in psychology, that 
the cerebrum is not occupied with direct impressions from 
without, but with the ideas of such impressions : instead of 
the actual sensations produced in the body, and directly 
appreciated by the sensory ganglia or primitive nervous 
centres, the cerebrum receives only the representations of 
these sensations ; and its consciousness is called representa- 
tive consciousness, to distinguish it from the original or 
presentative consciousness. Is it not significant that we 
have hit on the same word to distinguish the function of 
our House of Commons ? We call it a representative body, 
because the interests with which it deals — the pains and 
pleasures about which it consults — are not directly pre- 
sented to it, but represented to it by its various members ; 
and a debate is a conflict of representations of the evils or 
benefits likely to follow from a proposed course — a descrip- 
tion which applies with equal truth to a debate in the indi- 
vidual consciousness. In both cases, too, these great gov- 
erning masses take no part in the executive functions. As, 
after a conflict in the cerebrum, those desires which finally 
predominate, act on the subjacent ganglia, and through 
their instrumentality determine the bodily actions ; so the 
parties which, after a parliamentary struggle, gain the vic- 
tory, do not themselves carry out their wishes, but get 
them carried out by the executive divisions of the Govern- 
ment. The fulfilment of all legislative decisions still de- 
volves on the original' directive centres — the impulse pass- 
ing from the Parliament to the Ministers, and from the 
Ministers to the King, in whose name everything is done ; 
iust as those smaller, first-developed ganglia, which in the 
lowest vertebrata are the chief controlling agents, are still, 
in the brains of the higher vertebrata, the agents through 
which the dictates of the cerebrum are worked out. 



430 THE SOCIAL OKGANISM 

Horeovei, in both cases these original centres become 
increasingly automatic. In the developed vertebrate ani- 
mal, they have little function beyond that of conveying 
impressions to, and executing the determinations of, the 
larger centres. In our highly organized government, the 
monarch has long been lapsing into a passive agent of Par- 
liament ; and now, ministers are rapidly falling into the 
same position. 

Nay, between the two cases there is a parallelism, even 
in respect of the exceptions to this automatic action. For 
in the individual creature, it happens that under circum- 
stances of sudden alarm, as from a loud sound close at 
hand, an unexpected object starting up in front, or a slip 
from insecure footing, the danger is guarded against by 
some quick involuntary jump, or adjustment of the limbs, 
that takes place before there is time to consider the im- 
pending evil, and take deliberate measures to avoid it : the 
rationale of which is, that these violent impressions pro- 
duced on the senses, are reflected from the sensory ganglia 
to the spinal cord and muscles, without, as in ordinary 
cases, first passing through the cerebrum. In like manner, 
on national emergencies, calling for prompt action, the 
King and Ministry, not having time to lay the matter be- 
fore the great deliberative bodies, themselves issue com- 
mands for the requisite movements or precautions : the 
primitive, and now almost automatic, directive centres, re- 
sume for a moment their original uncontrolled power. 
And then, strangest of all, observe that in either case there 
is an afterprocess of approval or disapproval. The individ- 
ual on recovering from his automatic start, at once contem- 
plates the cause of his fright ; and, according to the case, 
concludes that it was well he moved as he did, or con- 
demns himself for his groundless alarm. In like manner, 
the deliberative powers of the State, discuss, as soon as 
may be, the unauthorized acts of the executive powers 



TELEGKAPH- WIRES ANALOGOUS TO NEKVES. 431 

and, deciding that the reasons were or were not sufficient, 
grant or withhold a bill of indemnity.* 

Thus far in comparing the governmental organization 
of the body politic with that of an individual body, we 
have considered only the respective co-ordinating centres. 
We have yet to consider the channels through which these 
co-ordinating centres receive information and convey com- 
mands. In the simplest societies, as hi the simplest organ- 
isms, there is no " internuncial apparatus," as Hunter styled 
the nervous system. Consequently, impressions can be but 
slowly propagated from unit to unit throughout the whole 
mass. The same progress, however, which, in animal-or- 
ganization, shows itself in the establishment of ganglia or 
directive centres, shows itself also in the establishment of 
nerve-threads, through which the ganglia receive and con- 
vey impressions, and so control remote organs. And in so- 
cieties the like eventually takes place. 

After a long period during which the directive centres 
communicate with various parts of the society through 
other means, there at last comes into existence an " inter- 
nuncial apparatus," analogous to that found in individual 
bodies. The comparison of telegraph-wires to nerves, is 
familiar to all. It applies, however, to an extent not com- 
monly supposed. We do not refer to the near alliance be- 
tween the subtle forces employed in the two cases ; though 
it is now held that the nerve-force, if not literally electric, 

* It may be well to warn the reader against an error fallen into by one 
who criticised this essay on its first publication — the error of supposing that 
the analogy here intended to be drawn, is a specific analogy between the 
organization of society in England, and the human organization. As said 
at the outset, no such specific analogy exists. The above parallel, is one 
between the most-developed systems of governmental organization, indi- 
vidual and social; and the vertebrate type is instanced, merely as exhibit- 
ing this most-developed system. If any specific comparison were made, 
which it cannot rationally be, it would be to some much lower vertebrate 
form than the human. 
20 



432 THE SOCIAL ORGANISM. 

is still a special form of electric action, related to the ordi- 
nary form much as magnetism is. But we refer to the 
structural arrangements of our telegraph-system. Thus, 
throughout the vertebrate sub-kingdom, the great nerve- 
bundles diverge from the vertebrate axis, side by side with 
the great arteries ; and similarly, our groups of telegraph- 
wires are carried along the sides of our railways. The 
most striking parallelism, however, remains. Into each 
great bundle of nerves, as it leaves the axis of the body 
along with an artery, there enters a branch of the sympa- 
thetic nerve ; which branch, accompanying the artery 
throughout its ramifications, has the function of regulating 
its diameter and otherwise controlling the flow of blood 
through it according to the local requirements. Analo- 
gously, in the group of telegraph-wires running alongside 
each railway, there is one for the purpose of regulating the 
traffic — for retarding or expediting the flow of passengers 
and commodities, as the local conditions demand. Proba- 
bly, when our now rudimentary telegraph-system is fully 
developed, other analogies will be traceable. 

Such, then, is a general outline of the evidence which 
justifies, in detail, the comparison of societies to living or- 
ganisms. That they gradually increase in mass ; that they 
become little by little more complex ; that at the same 
time their parts grow more mutually dependent ; and that 
they continue to five and grow as wholes, while successive 
generations of their units appear and disappear ; are broad 
peculiarities which bodies politic display, in common with 
all living bodies ; and in which they and living bodies differ 
from everything else. And on carrying out the compari- 
son in detail, we find that these major analogies involve 
many minor analogies, far closer than might have been ex- 
pected. To these we would gladly have added others. "We 
had hoped to say something respecting the different types 
of social organization, and something also on social meta- 
morphoses ; but we have reached our assigned limits- 



XI. 

USE AND BEAUTY 



IN one of his essays, Emerson remarks, that what Nature 
at one time provides for use, she afterwards turns to 
ornament ; and he cites in illustration the structure of a 
sea-shell, in which the parts that have for a while formed 
the mouth are at the next season of growth left behind, 
and become decorative nodes and spines. 

It has often occurred to me that this same remark might 
be extended to the progress of Humanity. Here, too, the 
appliances of one era serve as embellishments to the next. 
Equally in institutions, creeds, customs, and superstitions, 
we may trace this evolution of beauty out of what was once 
purely utilitarian. 

The contrast between the feeling with which we regard 
portions of the Earth's surface still left in their original 
state, and the feeling with which the savage regarded them, 
is an instance that naturally comes first in order of time. 
If any one walking over Hampstead Heath, will note how 
strongly its picturesqueness is brought out by contrast 
with the surrounding cultivated fields and the masses of 
houses lying in the distance ; and will further reflect that, 
had this irregular gorse-covered surface extended on all 
sides to the horizon, it would have looked dreary and 
prosaic rather than pleasing ; he will see that to the primi- 
tive man a country so clothed presented no beauty at all 



434 "USE AND BEAUTY. 

To him it was merely a haunt of wild animals, and a ground 
out of which roots might be dug. What have become for 
us places of relaxation and enjoyment — places for afternoon 
strolls and for gathering flowers — were his places for labour 
and food, probably arousing in his mind none but utilitarian 
associations. 

Ruined castles afford an obvious instance of this meta- 
morphosis of the useful into the beautiful. To feudal 
barons and their retainers, security was the chief, if not the 
only end, sought in choosing the sites and styles of their 
strongholds. Probably they aimed as little at the pic- 
turesque as do the builders of cheap brick houses in our 
modern towns. Yet what wKere erected for shelter and 
safety, and what in those early days fulfilled an important 
function in the social economy, have now assumed a purely 
ornamental character. They serve as scenes for picnics ; 
pictures of them decorate our drawing-rooms ; and each 
supplies its surrounding districts with legends for Christ- 
mas Eve. 

Following out the train of thought suggested by this 
last illustration, we may see that not only do the material 
exuviae of past social states become the ornaments of our 
landscapes ; but that past habits, manners, and arrange- 
ments, serve as ornamental elements in our literature. 
The tyrannies that, to the serfs who bore them, were harsh 
and dreary facts ; the feuds which, to those who took part 
in them, were very practical life-and-death affairs ; the 
mailed, moated, sentinelled security that was irksome to 
the nobles who needed it ; the imprisonments, and tor- 
tures, and escapes, which were stern and quite prosaic 
realities to all concerned in them ; have become to us 
material for romantic tales — material which when woven 
into Ivanhoes and Marmions, serves for amusement in leis- 
ure hours, and become poetical by contrast with our daily 
lives. 



THE USEFUL TRANSFORMED INTO THE ORNAMENTAL. 435 

Thus, also, is it with extinct creeds. Stonehenge, which 
in the hands of the Druids had a governmental influence 
over men, is in our day a place for antiquarian excursions ; 
and its attendant priests are worked up into an opera. 
Greek sculptures, preserved for their beauty in our galleries 
of art, and copied for the decoration of pleasure grounds 
and entrance halls, once lived in men's minds as gods de- 
manding obedience ; as did also the grotesque idols that 
now amuse the visitors to our museums. 

Equally marked is this change of function in the case of 
minor superstitions. The fairy lore, which in past times 
was matter of grave belief, and held sway over people's 
conduct, has since been transformed into ornament for 
A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, The Fairy 
Queen, and endless small tales and poems ; and still affords 
subjects for children's story-books, themes for ballets, and 
plots for Planche's burlesques. Gnomes, and genii, and 
afrits, losing all their terrors, give piquancy to the wood- 
cuts in our illustrated edition of the Arabian Nights. 
While ghost-stories, and tales of magic and witchcraft, af- 
ter serving to amuse boys and girls in their leisure hours, 
become matter for jocose allusions that enliven tea-table 
conversation. 

Even our serious literature and our speeches are very 
generally relieved by ornaments drawn from such sources. 
A Greek myth is often used as a parallel by which to vary 
the monotony of some grave argument. The lecturer 
breaks the dead level of his practical discourse by illustra- 
tions drawn from bygone customs, events, or beliefs. And 
metaphors, similarly derived, give brilliancy to political 
orations, and to Times leading articles. 

Indeed, on careful inquiry, I think it will be found that 
we turn to purposes of beauty most bygone phenomena 
that are at all conspiucous. The busts of great men in our 
Libraries, and their tombs in our churches j the once useful 



436 USE AND BEAUTY. 

but now purely ornamental heraldic symbols ; the monks, 
nuns, and convents, that give interest to a certain class of 
novels ; the bronze mediaeval soldiers used for embellishing 
drawing-rooms ; the gilt Apollos that recline on time- 
pieces ; the narratives that serve as plots for our great 
dramas ; and the events that afford subjects for historical 
pictures ; — these and such like illustrations of the metamor- 
phosis of the useful into the beautiful, are so numerous as 
to suggest that, did we search diligently enough, we should 
find that in some place, or under some circumstances, 
nearly every notable product of the past has assumed a de- 
corative character. 

And here the mention of historical pictures reminds me 
that an inference may be drawn from all this, bearing 
directly on the practice of art. It has of late years been a 
frequent criticism upon our historical painters, that they 
err in choosing their subjects from the past ; and that, 
would they found a genuine and vital school, they must 
render on canvas the life and deeds and aims of our own 
time. If, however, there be any significance in the fore- 
going facts, it seems doubtful whether this criticism is a 
just one. For if it be the process of things, that what has 
performed some practical function in society during one 
era, becomes available for ornament in a subsequent one ; 
it almost follows that, conversely, whatever is perform- 
ing some practical function now, or has very recently 
performed one, does not possess the ornamental charac- 
ter ; and is, consequently, inapplicable to any purpose of 
which beauty is the aim, or of which it is a needful in- 
gredient. 

Still more reasonable will this conclusion appear, when 
we consider the nature of this process by which the useful 
is changed into the ornamental. An essential pre-requisite 
to all beauty is contrast. To obtain artistic effect, light 
must be put in juxtaposition with shade, bright colours 



CONTRAST A FEE-REQUISITE TO BEAUTY. 437 

with, dull colours, a fretted surface with a plain one. Fortt 
passages in music must have piano passages to relieve 
them ; concerted pieces need interspersing with solos ; and 
rich chords must not be continuously repeated. In the 
drama we demand contrast of characters, of scenes, of sen- 
timent, of style. In prose composition an eloquent passage 
should have a comparatively plain setting ; and in poems 
great effect is obtained by occasional change of versifica- 
tion. This general principle will, I think, explain the trans- 
formation of the bygone useful into the present beautiful 
It is by virtue of their contrast with our present modes of 
life, that past modes of life look interesting and romantic. 
Just as a picnic, which is a temporary return to an aborigi- 
nal condition, derives, from its unfamiliarity, a certain poe- 
try which it would not have were it habitual ; so, every- 
thing ancient gains, from its relative novelty to us, an 
element of interest. Gradually as, by the growth of soci- 
ety, we leave behind the customs, manners, arrangements, 
and all the products, material and mental, of a bygone age 
■ — gradually as we recede from the^e so far that there 
arises a conspicuous difference between them and those we 
are familiar with ; so gradually do they begin to assume to 
us a poetical aspect, and become applicable for ornament. 
And hence it follows that things and events which are close 
to us, and which are accompanied by associations of ideas 
not markedly contrasted with our ordinary associations 
are relatively inappropriate for purposes of art. 



XII. 

THE SOURCES OF ARCHITECTURAL TYPES 



"TX^rHEISr lately looking through the gallery of the Old 
V V Water-Colour Society, I was struck with the incon- 
gruity produced by putting regular architecture into irregu- 
lar scenery. In one case, where the artist had introduced a 
perfectly symmetrical Grecian edifice into a mountainous 
and somewhat wild landscape, the discordant effect was 
particularly marked. " How very unpicturesque," said a 
lady to her friend, as they passed ; showing that I was not 
alone in my opinion. Her phrase, however, set me specu- 
lating. Why unpicturesque ? Picturesque means, like a 
picture — like what men choose for pictures. Why then 
should this be not fit for a picture ? 

Thinking the matter over, it seemed to me that the 
artist had sinned against that unity which is essential to a 
good picture. When the other constituents of a landscape 
have irregular forms, any artificial structure introduced 
must have an irregular form, that it may seem part of the 
landscape. The same general character must pervade it 
and surrounding objects ; otherwise it, and the scene amid 
which it stands, become not one thing but two things ; and 
we say it looks out of place. Or, speaking psychologically, 
the associated ideas called up by a building with its wings, 
windows, and all its parts symmetrically disposed, differ 
widely from the ideas associated with an entirely irregular 



DERIVATION OF GREEK AND ROMAN STYLES. 439 

landscape ; and the one set of ideas tends to banish the 
other. 

Pursuing the train of thought, sundry illustrative facts 
came to ray mind. I remembered that a castle, which is 
more irregular in outline than any other kind of building, 
pleases us most when seated amid crags and precipices; 
while a castle on a plain seems an incongruity. The partly - 
regular and partly-irregular forms of our old farm-houses, 
and our gabled gothic manors and abbeys, appear quite in 
harmony with an undulating, wooded country. In towns 
we prefer symmetrical architecture ; and in towns it pro- 
duces in us no feeling of incongruity, because all surround- 
ing things — men, horses, vehicles — are symmetrical also. 

And here I was reminded of a notion that has frequent- 
ly recurred to me ; namely, that there is some relationship 
between the several kinds of architecture and the several 
classes of natural objects. Buildings in the Greek and 
Roman styles seem, in virtue of their symmetry, to take 
their type from animal life. In the partly-irregular Gothic, 
ideas derived from the vegetable world appear to predomi- 
nate. And wholly irregular buildings, such as castles, may 
be considered as having inorganic forms for their basis. 

Whimsical as this speculation looks at first sight, it is 
countenanced by numerous facts. The connexion between 
symmetrical architecture and animal forms, may be inferred 
from the hind of symmetry we expect, and are satisfied 
with, in regular buildings. Thus in a Greek temple we re- 
quire that the front shall be symmetrical in itself, and that 
the two flanks shall be alike ; but we do not look for uni- 
formity between the flanks and the front, nor between the 
front and the back. The identity of this symmetry with 
that found in animals is obvious. Again, why is it that a 
building making any pretension to symmetry displeases us 
if not quite symmetrical ? Probably the reply will be — 
Because we see that the designer's idea is not fully carried 



440 THE SOURCES OF ARCIIITECTTJRAL TYPES. 

out ; arid that hence our love of completeness is offended. 
But then there come the further questions — How do we 
know that the architect's conception was symmetrical? 
Whence comes this notion of symmetry which we have, 
and which we attribute to him ? Unless we fall back upon 
the old doctrine of innate ideas, we must admit that the 
idea of bilateral symmetry is derived from without ; and 
to admit this is to admit that it is derived from the higher 
animals. 

That there is some relationship between Gothic archi- 
tecture and vegetable forms is a position generally admit- 
ted. The often-remarked analogy between a groined nave 
and an avenue of trees with interlacing branches, shows 
that the fact has forced itself on men's observation. It is 
not only in this analogy, however, that the kinship is seen. 
It is seen still better in the essential characteristic of Goth- 
ic ; namely, what is termed its aspiring tendency. That 
predominance of vertical lines which so strongly distin- 
guishes Gothic from other styles, is the most marked pecu- 
liarity of trees, when compared with animals or rocks. To 
persons of active imagination, a tail Gothic tower, with its 
elongated apertures and clusters of thin projections run- 
ning from bottom to top, suggests a vague notion of growth. 

Of the alleged connexion between inorganic forms and 
the wholly irregular and the castellated styles of building, 
we have, I think, some proof in the fact that when an edi- 
fice is irregular, the more irregular it is the more it pleases 
us. I see no wa}'" of accounting for this fact, save by sup- 
posing that the greater the irregularity the more strongly 
are we reminded of the inorganic forms typified, and the 
more vividly are aroused the agreeable ideas of rugged 
and romantic scenery associated with those forms. 

Further evidence of these several relationships of styles 
of architecture to classes of natural objects, is supplied by 
the kinds of decoration they respectively represent. The 



SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DECORATIONS. 441 

public buildings of Greece, while characterized in their 
outlines by the bilateral symmetry seen in the higher ani- 
mals, have their pediments and entablatures covered with 
sculptured men and beasts. Egyptian temples and Assyr- 
ian palaces, while similarly symmetrical in their general 
plan, are similarly ornamented on their walls and at their 
doors. In Gothic, again, with its grove-like ranges of clus 
tered columns, we find rich foliated ornaments abundantly 
employed. And accompanying the totally irregular, inor- 
ganic outlines of old castles, we see neither vegetable nor 
animal decorations. The bare, rock-like walls are sur- 
mounted by battlements, consisting of almost plain blocks, 
which remind us of the projections on the edge of a rugged 
cliff. 

But perhaps the most significant fact is the harmony 
that may be observed between each type of architecture 
and the scenes in which it is indigenous. For what is the 
explanation of this harmony, unless it be that the predomi- 
nant character of surrounding things has, in some way, de- 
termined the mode of building adopted ? 

That the harmony exists is clear. Equally in the cases 
of Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Rome, town life preceded 
the construction of the symmetrical buildings that have 
come down to us. And town life is one in which, as al- 
ready observed, the majority of familiar objects are sym- 
metrical. We instinctively feel the naturalness of this asso- 
ciation. Out amid the fields, a formal house, with a cen- 
tral door flanked by an equal number of windows to right 
and left, strikes us as unrural — looks as though transplanted 
from a street ; and we cannot look at one of those stuccoed 
villas, with mock windows carefully arranged to balance 
the real ones, without being reminded of the suburban res- 
idence of a retired tradesman. 

In styles indigenous in the country, we not only find the 
general irregularity characteristic of surrounding things. 



442 THE SOURCES OF ARCHITECTURAL TYPES. 

but we may trace some kinship between each kind of irreg 
ularity and the local circumstances. We see the broken 
rocky masses amid which castles are commonly placed, mir- 
rored in their stern, inorganic forms. In abbeys, and such- 
like buildings, which are commonly found in comparatively 
sheltered districts, we find no such violent dislocations of 
masses and outlines ; and the nakedness appropriate to the 
fortress is replaced by decorations reflecting the neighbour- 
ing woods. Between a Swiss cottage and a Swiss view 
there is an evident relationship. The angular roof, so bold 
and so disproportionately large when compared to other 
roofs, reminds one of the adjacent mountain peaks ; and 
the broad overhanging eaves have a sweep and inclination 
like those of the lower branches of a pine tree. Consider, 
too, the apparent kinship between the fiat roofs that prevail 
in Eastern cities, interspersed with occasional minarets, and 
the plains that commonly surround them, dotted here and 
there by palm trees. You cannot contemplate a picture of 
one of these places, without being struck by the predomi- 
nance of horizontal lines, and their harmony with the widf. 
stretch of the landscape. 

That the congruity here pointed out should hold in 
every case must not be expected. The Pyramids, for ex 
ample, do not seem to come under this generalization. 
Their repeated horizontal lines do indeed conform to the 
flatness of the neighbouring desert ; but their general con- 
tour seems to have no adjacent analogue. Considering, 
however, that migrating races, carrying their architectural 
systems with them, would naturally produce buildings hav- 
ing no relationship to their new localities ; and that it is 
not always possible to distinguish styles which are indige- 
nous, from those which are naturalized ; numerous anoma- 
lies must be looked for. 

The general idea above illustrated will perhaps be some. 
what misinterpreted. Possibly some will take the proposi* 



THEIR UNCONSCIOUS GKOWTH. 443 

tion to be that men intentionally gave to their buildings 
the leading characteristics of neighbouring objects. But 
this is not what is meant. T do not suppose that they did 
so in times past, any more than they do so now. The hy- 
pothesis is, that in their choice of forms men are uncon- 
eaiously influenced by the forms encircling them. That 
flat-roofed, symmetrical architecture should have originated 
in the East, among pastoral tribes surrounded by their 
herds and by wide plains, seems to imply that the builders 
were swayed by the horizontality and symmetry to which 
they were habituated. And the harmony which we have 
found to exist in other cases between indigenous styles and 
their localities, implies the general action of like influences. 
Indeed, on considering the matter psychologically, I do not 
see how it could well be otherwise. For as all conceptions 
must be made up of images, and parts of images, received 
through the senses — as it is impossible for a man to con- 
ceive any design save one of which the elements have come 
into his mind from without ; and as his imagination will 
most readily run in the direction of his habitual percep- 
tions ; it follows, almost necessarily, that the characteristic 
which predominates in these habitual perceptions must im- 
press itself on his design. 



XIII. 
THE USE OE ANTHROPOMORPHISM. 



THAT long fit of indignation which seizes all generous 
natures when in youth they begin contemplating hu- 
man affairs, having fairly spent itself, there slowly grows 
up a perception that the institutions, beliefs, and forms so 
vehemently condemned are not wholly bad. This reaction 
runs to various lengths. In some, merely to a comparative 
contentment with the arrangements under which they live. 
In others to a recognition of the fitness that exists between 
each people and its government, tyrannical as that may be. 
In some, again, to the conviction, that hateful though it is 
to us, and injurious as it would be now, slavery was once 
beneficial — was one of the necessary phases of human pro- 
gress. Again, in others, to the suspicion that great benefit 
has indirectly arisen from the perpetual warfare of past 
times ; insuring as this did the spread of the strongest races, 
and so providing good raw material for civilization. And 
in a few this reaction ends in the generalization that all 
modes of human thought and action subserve, in the times 
and places in which they occur, some useful function : that 
though bad in the abstract, they are relatively good — are 
the best which the then existing conditions admit of. 

A startling conclusion to which this faith in the essen- 
tial beneficence of things commits us, is that the religious 
creeds through which mankind successively pass, are, dur- 



FAITHS AND CREEDS ARE AFFAIRS OF GROWTH. 445 

ing the eras in which they are severally held, the best 
that could be held ; and that this is true, not only of the 
latest and most refined creeds, but of all, even to the ear- 
liest and most gross. Those who regard men's faiths aa 
giren to them from without — as having origins either di- 
rectly divine or diabolical, and who, considering their own 
as the sole example of the one, class all the rest under the 
other, will think this a very shocking opinion. I can im- 
agine, too, that many of those who have abandoned cur- 
rent theologies, and now regard religions as so many 
natural products of human nature — men who, having lost 
that antagonism towards their old creed which they felt 
while shaking themselves free from it, can now see that it 
was highly beneficial to past generations, and is beneficial 
still to a large part of mankind ; — I can imagine even these 
hardly prepared to admit that all religions, clown to the 
lowest Fetichism, have, in their places, fulfilled useful func- 
tions. If such, however, will consistently develop their 
ideas, they will find this inference involved. 

For if it be true that humanity in its corporate as well 
as in its individual aspect, is a growth and not a manufac- 
ture, it is obvious that during each phase men's theologies, 
as well as their political and social arrangements, must be 
determined into such forms as the conditions require. In the 
one case as in the other, by a tentative process, things from 
time to time re-settle themselves in a way that best consists 
with national equilibrium. As out of plots and the strug- 
gles of chieftains, it continually results that the strongest 
gets to the top, and by virtue of his proved superiority 
ensures a period of quiet, and gives society time to grow ; 
as out of incidental expedients there periodically ai-ise new 
divisions of labour, which get permanently established 
only by serving men's wants better than the previous ar- 
rangements did ; so, the creed which each period evolves is 
one more in conformity with the needs of the time than 



446 THE USE OF ANTHROPOMORPHISM. 

the creed which preceded it. Not to rest in general state- 
ments, however, let us consider why this must be so. Let 
us see whether, in the genesis of men's ideas of deity, there 
is not involved a necessity to conceive of deity under the 
aspect most influential with them. 

It is now generally admitted that a more or less ideal- 
ized humanity is the form which every conception of a per- 
sonal God must take. Anthropomorphism is an inevitable 
result of the laws of thought. "We cannot take a step to- 
wards constructing an idea of God without the ascription 
of human attributes. We cannot even speak of a divine 
will without assimilating the divine nature to our own ; 
for we know nothing of volition save as a property of our 
own minds. 

While this anthropomorphic tendency, or rather neces- 
sity, is manifested by themselves with sufficient grossness — 
a grossness that is offensive to those more advanced — 
Christians are indignant at the still gi-osser manifestations 
of it seen among uncivilized men. Certainly, such concep- 
tions as those of some Polynesians, who believe that their 
gods feed on the souls of the dead, or as those of the 
Greeks, who ascribed to the personages of their Pantheon 
every vice, from domestic cannibalism downward, are re- 
pulsive enough. But if, ceasing to regard these notions 
from the outside, we more philosophically regard them 
from the inside — if we consider how they looked to believers, 
and observe the relationships they bore to the natures and 
needs of such ; we shall begin to think of them with some 
tolerance. The question to be answered is, whether these 
beliefs were beneficent in their effects on those who held 
them ; not whether they would be beneficent for us, or 
for perfect men ; and to this question the answer must be 
that while absolutely bad, they were relatively good. 

For is it not obvious that the savage man will be most 
effectually controlled by his fears of a savage deity ? 



NECESSITY OF THE IDEA OF A CRUEL DEITY. 447 

Must it not happen, that if his nature requires great re- 
straint, the supposed consequences of transgression, to be 
a check upon him, must he proportionately terrible ; and 
for these to be proportionately terrible, must not his god 
be conceived as proportionately cruel and revengeful? Is it 
not well that the treacherous, thievish, lying Hindoo should 
believe in a hell where the wicked are boiled in cauldrons, roll- 
ed down mountains bristling with knives, and sawn asunder 
between flaming iron posts ? And that there may be pro- 
vided such a hell, is it not needful that he should believe in a 
divinity delighting in human immolations and the self-tor- 
ture of fakirs ? Does it not seem clear that during the 
earlier ages in Christendom, when men's feelings were so 
hard that a holy father could describe one of the delights 
of heaven to be the contemplation of the torments of the 
damned — does it not seem clear that while the general na- 
ture was so unsympathetic, there needed, to keep men in 
order, all the prospective tortures described by Dante, and 
a deity implacable enough to inflict them ? 

And if, as we thus see, it is well for the savage man to 
believe in a savage god, then we may also see the great 
usefulness of this anthropomorphic tendency; or, as before 
said, necessity. We have in it another illustration of that 
essential beneficence of things visible everywhere through- 
out nature. From this inability under which we labour to 
conceive of a deity save as some idealization of ourselves, 
it inevitably results that in each age, among each people, 
and to a great extent in each individual, there must arise 
just that conception of deity best adapted to the needs of 
the case. If, being violent and bloodthirsty, the nature be 
one calling for stringent control, it evolves the idea of a 
ruler still more violent and bloodthirsty, and fitted to afford 
this control. When, by ages of social discipline, the nature 
has been partially humanized, and the degree of restraint re- 
quired has become less, the diabolical cnaract eristics before 



448 THE TJSE OF ANTHROPOMORPHISM. 

ascribed to the deity cease to be so predominant in the 
conception of him. And gradually, as all need for restraint 
disappears, this conception approximates towards that of 
a purely beneficent necessity. Thus, man's constitution is 
in this, as in other respects, self-adjusting, self-balancing, 
The mind itself evolves a compensating check to its own 
movements ; varying always in proportion to the require- 
ment. Its centrifugal and its centripetal forces are neces- 
sarily in correspondence, because the one generates the 
other. And so we find that the forms of both religious 
and secular rule follow the same law. As an ill- controlled 
national character produces a despotic terrestrial govern- 
ment, so also does it produce a despotic celestial govern- 
ment — the one acting through the senses, the other 
through the imagination ; and in the converse case the 
same relationship holds good. 

Organic as this relationship is in its origin, no artificial 
interference can permanently affect it. Whatever pertur- 
bations an external agency may seem to produce, they are 
soon neutralized in fact, if not in appearance. I was re- 
cently struck with this in reading a missionary account of 
the " gracious visitations of the Holy Spirit at Vewa," one 
of the Feejee islands. 'Describing a " penitent meeting," 
the account says : — 

" Certainly the feelings of the Vewa people were not ordi- 
nary. They literally roared for hours together for the disquietude 
of their souls. This frequently terminated in fainting from ex- 
haustion, which was the only respite some of them had till they 
found peace. They no sooner recovered their consciousness than 
they prayed themselves first into an agony, then again into a state 
of entire insensibility." 

Now these Feejee islanders are the most savage of all 
the uncivilized races. They are given to cannibalism, hi 
fanticide, and human sacrifices ; they are so bloodthirsty 



CONVERSION AMONG THE FEEJEEAN8. 449 

and so treacherous, that members of the same family dare 
not trust each other ; and, in harmony with these charac- 
teristics, they have for their aboriginal'god, a serpent. Is 
it not clear then, that these violent emotions which the 
missionaries describe, these terrors and agonies of despair 
which they rejoiced over, were nothing but the worship of 
the old god under a new name ? Is it not clear that these 
Feejees had simply understood those parts of the Christian 
creed which agree in spirit with their own — the vengeance, 
the perpetual torments, the diabolism of it; that these, 
harmonizing with their natural conceptions of divine rule, 
were realized by them with extreme vividness ; and that 
the extremity of the fear which made them " literally roar 
for hours together," arose from the fact that while they 
could fully take in and believe the punitive element, the 
merciful one was beyond their comprehension ? This is 
the obvious inference. And it carries with it the further 
one, that in essence their new belief was merely their old 
one under a new form — the same substantial conception 
with a different history and different names. 

However great, therefore, may be the seeming change 
adventitiously produced in a people's religion, the anthro- 
pomorphic tendency prevents it from being other than a 
superficial change — insures such modifications of the new 
religion as to give it all the potency of the old one — ob- 
scures whatever higher elements there may be in it until 
the people have reached the capability of being acted upon 
by them : and so, re-establishes the equilibrium between 
the impulses and the control they need. If any one re- 
quires detailed illustrations of this, he will find them in 
abundance in the history of the modifications of Christian- 
ity throughout Europe. 

Ceasing then to regai'd heathen theologies from the 
personal point of view, and considering them solely with 
reference to the function they fulfil where they are indige- 



450 THE USE OF ANTHKOPOMOEPHISM. 

nous, we must recognise them in common with all theolo- 
gies, as good for their time and places ; and this mental 
necessity which disables us from conceiving a deity save as 
some idealization of ourselves, we must recognise as the 
agency by which harmony is produced and maintained 
between every phase of human character and its religions 
creed. 



INDEX. 



Abstract and concrete, relations of, 174. 

Actions, voluntary and involuntary, 323. 

Analogies of the rudest societies to the 
lowest forms of life, 402, 406. 

Analogies of function between living be- 
ings and societies, 414. 

Annulosa, structure of, compared to that 
of nations, 412, 426. 

Anthropomorphism, necessity of, 426. 

Architectural ideas, origin of, 443. 

Architecture, relationship to natural ob- 
jects, 439; illustrations of, 439-441; 
town, why symmetrical, 439 ; country, 
why irregular, 441. 

Arts, interconnection of, 187. 

Asteroids, method of formation of, 291. 

Astronomic influences upon climate pro- 
duce breaks in geological succession, 
360. 

Automatic actions of men and govern- 
ments, 430. 

Australia, fauna of, 354. 



Bain " On the Emotions and Will," esti- 
mate of, 306. 

Beauty, its evolution from utility, 433, 
437. 

Beliefs, how to judge of them, 446. 

Bow, derivation of the, 78. 

Breaks in the geological record, Hugh 
Miller upon, 359; produced by astro- 
nomic causes, 360 ; by redistributions of 
land and sea, 363. 

Buildings related to landscape, 442 ; cause 
of incongruities in, 442; relation unin- 
tentional, 443. 



Cambrian rocks, inference from their 

thickness, 370. 
Calculus, origin of, 158. 



Castles, built with no reference to art, 434. 

Cause, single, produces more than one ef- 
fect, 32; illustrated in geological phe- 
nomena, 35 : in chemical, 40 ; in organic 
evolution, 42 ; in social progress, 50 ; in 
use of locomotive engine, 53. 

Central America, effects of subsidence of, 
38. 

Cerebrum, analogy of, to houses of parlia- 
ment, 427, 430. 

Circulation in animal bodies and bodies 
politic, 405, 415 ; rates of movement in, 
421 ; of money and blood-discs, 418. 

Classifications of science, progress of, 183; 
what they indicate, 125 ; Oken's, 125 ; 
Hegel's, 128; Comte's, 131; serial ar- 
rangement vicious, 144. 

Classification, the mental process in, 147; 
advances with rationality, 157; how it 
has aided science, 182; of the cogni- 
tions, 325; of the feelings, 327; in Psy- 
chology, for the present, must be pro- 
visional, 304, 305. 

Climate, changes in, produced by astro- 
nomic rhythm, 360; by redistributions 
of land and sea, 363. 

Comets, formation of, 256 ; orbits of, 258; 
distribution of, 259, 261. 

Common knowledge, nature of, 117 ; rela- 
tion of, to science, 118, 122. 

Comte's hierarchy of the sciences, 181. 

Consciousness, mvstery of, 197. 

Condensation of nebulae, 250, 286-288. 

Contrast, its relation to beauty, 436. 

Creeds suited to the age that holds them, 
445, 447. 

Curtsy, origin of, 79. 



Densities of the planets, 278, 279. 

Development hypothesis, neither provsd 
nor disproved by Paleontology, 371, 3S0; 
defense of, 383. 

Direct creation inconceivable, 382 ; no ex- 
amples of, 381; origin of the notion, 
877. 



452 



Earth's crust, 5; contraction of, 35; thick- 
ness of, 2SS. 

Ectoderm social and embryonic, 823. 

Education, bearing of evolution of science 
upon, 193. 

Emotions in animals, genesis of, 319. 

Emotional language. 232; importance of, 
235, 238. 

Engine, locomotive, results of invention 
of, 53. 

Equality, origin of notion of, 152, 158 ; of 
things and relations, 153. 

Evolution of the emotions, 335. 

Evolution of governmental and nervous 
structures, 3z4. 



Fashion, origin of, 90 ; corruption of, 91. 

Feeling and action, relation of, 199, 208. 

Feeling, mystery of, 19T ; effects of surplus 
in producing laughter, 201 ; why it dis- 
turbs the intellect, 207. 

Feeling, a stimulus to muscular action, 
211, 220; shown in loudness of voice, 
215 ; in quality or timbre, 215; in pitch, 
216; in intervals, 217; in variability of 
pitch, 219 ; relation of. to vocal sounds 
in ourselves, 220 ; in others, 220 : causes 
prostration. 222 ; classification of the 
feelings, 327. 

Fejee islanders, penitent meeting among, 
448. 

Final cause, 262, 272, 275, 297. 

Fossils as tests of age and position, 343, 
851. 

Function of music, 231-235. 



Generalizations premature, use of, 327; as 

seen in history of Astronomy, 330 ; in 

Geology, 831. 
Genesis of new emotions in civilization, 

317; in animals, 319. 
Geological evidence, value of, 8. 
Geologic "systems," are they universal? 

339-343. 
Geometry, origin of. 15S. 167. 
God. origin of the conception of. 65. 
Gothic architecture, source of, 449, 450. 
Government, rise of. 12, 69, 92; three-fold 

nature of. 13, 65, S3: separation of civil 

from religious, 69 ; early need of severe, 

85 ; progressive amelioration of, 88 ; 

course of all, 114; results from national 

character, 391. 
Great men, relation of, to social changes, 

392. 
Greek and Roman architecture, derivation 

of, 439. 



Heathen theologies, estimate of, 44. 

Hegel's classification of philosophy, 128. 

History as commonlv studied, small value 
of. 389. 

Hobbs's parallelism of society and the hu- 
mau body, 383. 

Homogeneous, change of, to heterogene- 
ous, 3 ; seen in genesis of solar system, 
3; in phenomena of earth's crust, 5; in 
the advance of life in general, 7; in the 
progress of man, 10; in growth of civili- 
zation. 12; in government, 13; in lan- 
guage, 17; in painting and sculpture, 
20; in poetry, music, and dancing, 24; 
cause of this universal change, 32. 

Hutton's geological system, Sol ; contrast 
of the modern with, 334. 

Hydra compared with primitive tribes, 
405,411,416,424. 

Hydrozoa, analogies of, 405, 407, 416. 



Industrial organization, 389. 

Industrial arrangements, development of 
compared with that of the alimentary 
organs, 414. 

Insensible modifications effect great 
changes, 3S3; illustrated by geometri- 
cal curves, 322 ; by physiological de- 
velopment, 3S6. 

Interior structures of the planets, 284-288. 



King's councils compared to ganglia, 425, 

427. 
Knowledge, experience the source of all, 

126; relations of various kinds of, 167. 



Language, differentiation of. 17; origin of 
written, 18; origin of verbal, 149 ; ori- 
gin of emotional. 220. 

La Place's theory of planetary evolution, 
263-265. 

Laughter, common explanations of, 194 ; 
movements in. 200 ; groups of mnscles 
successively affected in. 201 ; caused by 
incongruities, 203 ; facilitates digestion, 
207. 

Law, origin of, 70. 

Likeness and unlikeness, recognition of, 
the basis of classification. 147 ; the basis 
of language, 149 ; of reasoning, 150; of 
art, 151 ; leads to science, 152. 

Logic, how evolved, 158. 

Lyell, Sir Charles, criticism upon, 342, 
346. 



453 



Mod, progress of, 10. 

Manners, genesis of, 77; decline of the 
influence of, 89 ; conformity in manners 
leads to extravagance. 99; conformity 
in, decreases social intercourse, 100; de- 
feats the true end of social life, 193, 
197. 

Mathematics, how evolved, 15S. 

Mechanics, rise and science of, 163. 

Mineral qualities of rocks untrustworthy 
tests of age or position, 336. 

Miller, Hugh, estimate of, 356. 

Motion of nebulous matter, 251, 253. 

Morality, origin of, 79 

Muscular movements, cause of, 195; ar- 
rested by feeling, 199; in laughter pur- 
poseless. 201 : of animals when excited, 
211; variations of, produce changes of 
voice, 214. 

Music, increasing heterogeneity of, 26; 
relation of mental to muscular excite- 
ment, the source of, 214 ; theory of, 
221-224; its history confirms the the- 
ory, 224-22S ; negative proof of theory 
of, 228-231. 

Murchison, Sir E. I., criticism upon his 
" Siluria," :J:JG, 344, 367, 370. 



Nebulae, are they parts of our sidereal 
system ? 243. 249 : condensation of, 250, 
2S6-233 : motion in, 251 ; significance of 
forms of, 254; structure of spiral, 254. 

Nebular hypothesis, 3, 34; its high deri- 
vation. 239 ; it explains cometary phe- 
nomena, 262. 

Negative facts in geology, small value of, 
376-379. 

Nervous system, effects of excitement in, 
195; directions of discharge of excite- 
ment in, 197; course of discharge un- 
guided by purpose, 201. _ 

Number, origin of conception of, 154. 



Oken's classification of knowledge, 125. 



Painting and sculpture, origin of. 
Paleontology neither proves nor C 

development, 371, 3S0. 
Picturesque, meaning of, 437. 
Planets, relative times of cooling of, 281- 

233; structures of. 2S4-288. 
Plato's model republic, central idea of, 

392. 
Previsions and ordinary knowledge, 117 ; 



previsions known as science, 118 ; com- 
mon and scientific, 123; when quantita- 
tive arose, 158; increase in precision, 
171. 

Primary divisions of a germ and of a so- 
ciety, 408-411. 

Progress, current meaning of, 1 ; present 
inquiry concerning, 2; law of progress 
exemplified in the genesis of solar sys- 
tem, 3; in the phenomena of the earth's 
crust, 5; in the advance of life in gen- 
eral, 7 ; in the history of man, 10 ; in 
the growth of civilization. 12 ; in gov- 
ernment, 13; in language, 17; in paint- 
ing and sculpture, 20; in poetry, music, 
and dancing, 24; statement of the prin- 
ciple which determines progress of 
every kind. 32 ; the principle of prog- 
ress illustrated in geological phenomena, 
35 ; in chemical, 40 ; in organic evolu- 
tion, 42; in social advancement, 50; in 
use of locomotive engine, 54 : this prin- 
ciple does not explain things in them- 
selves, 5S ; progress of science, 141 ; of 
astronomical discovery, 165, 171. 

Progress of animals and societies in form- 
ing channels of communication, 420. 

Psychology, relation of Knglish thought 
to, £05 ; classification in, tor the pres- 
ent, must be provisional, 304, 305. 



Reasoning, nature of, 150; basis of, 154; 
advances with classification, 157. 

Reformers, eccentricities of, 61 ; why ne- 
cessary, 93 : not. selfish, 95, 97 ; difficul- 
ties of social 110. 

Reform . how is it to be effected ? 111. 

Religion aided by inquiry, 58. 

Religious ideas, account of primitive, 66. 



Saturn, rines of, 276. 

Satellites, distribution of, 272, 276. 

Savage men need a savage deity, 447. 

Science, limits of, 5S; definition of, 119 ; 
when complete, 120 ; test of the depth 
of, 122 ; slow growth of, 123 ; duplex 
progress of, 141; ultimate analysis of 
exact, 160. 

Sciences, early simultaneous advance of, 
16o ; not independent of each other, 
186; aid each other by analogies, 181 ; 
mutual influence of modern, 178. 

Sculpture and painting, origin of, 20. 

Solar System, movements of planets on 
their axes in. 267-271. 

Strata now forming, lithological differ- 
ences in, 351 : differences in the order 
of superposition of, 352; differences in 
the organic remains of, 358. 

Societies and individual organisms, points 



454 



of agreement between, 395-397 ; differ- 
ences of, examined, 897-401. 

Social intercourse, philosophy of, 105. 

Social changes, true source of, 890. 

Spectrum analysis, 299. 

Spiral nebulas, 255. 

Steam-engine, multiplied effects of. 58. 

Sun, constitution of, 298, 300 ; relation of 
plane of its equator to plane of plane- 
tary orbits, 266. 



Telegraph wires, comparison of, to nerves, 

431. 
Titles, derivation of, 72 ; depreciation of, 

74. 
Truth, ultimate test of, 130. 



Useful, passes into the beautiful, 434, 43T. 



Voice, cause of loudness of, 215; cause 
of quality of, 215; of pitch of, 216; in- 
tervals in, 217 ; variability of the pitch 
of, 219. 

Voluntary and involuntary actions, 828. 



Werner's system of Geology, 332; con- 
trast of, with the modern system, 334. 



THE END. 






31+77-6 






